SCEN
by ELECTRIK ARCHON
Summary: Have you ever thought what if Salem was good?, what if ruby was evil? the story takes place with Salem as the young huntress just starting beacon, what choices will she make, what adventures will she have and how will she help save Remnant.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello any and all readers this is my first time writing anything like this so I apologise in advance if my writing is not the best. I plan to make this a pretty long story as it is a complete rewrite of the story.**

 **Chapter 1 Salem Velaros**

Salem was heading to her parents house for the holidays, she had just wrapped up her semester at signal and was eager to share her adventures with her parents, she walked through a forest until she came to an isolated wooden house just past the clearing, her eyes beamed at the familiar looking structure. She walked up to the door knocking three times, a moment of silence passed then the rattling of a chain sliding, the door opened to reveal a silver haired woman, slightly taller than salem.

The woman gasped as she saw the person standing at the door "hello mother" she smiled, the mother's eyes sparkled with joy as she lunged forward hugging salem in a death grip. Salem had forgotten her mother's inhuman strength as she gasped for air "mam… air…" the mother released her "sorry honey, welcome home, come on in, your father's cooking tonight", salem was confused normally her mam would normally of doing the cooking "why" she said as she walked in, her mother let out a small laugh "he lost a bet" she turned her head towards the hallway "dear our daughter is home". The sound of large thumping approached the door then I larger man appeared he had grey hair and blue eyes much like salem, he looked at his daughter with warm eyes "welcome home salem", salem smiled "thanks dad".

Once she got settled into the house, they all sat down by the dinning table, salem relished eating home cooked food, it had none of the health restrictions signal had so this was bliss. After a few minutes of contented eating the father spoke "so how have you been at signal salem, you've grown since I last say you" salem smiled in response "things have been great at signal, I'm the second best fighter in the rankings, I even got my own custom weapon" her father chuckled "really, that is great, so what did you decide to make" salem grinned "I'll show you".

She slid herself out of the chair, taking a step back she reached behand her and grabbed what looked like a large twinbladed knife, once she held it out she pressed a button and it expanded to about a meter, the blades curved out as it extended into crescents "this is called Lua's tear it's a semi detachable twin bladed glave that doubles as a bow, the father took in the design "that is a beautiful weapon salem, you should be proud" salem chuckles "I am".

"Also" salem smiles "I have also gotten really good with my semblance", this peeked her mother's interest "oh really care to share" salem nodded "sure" and with that she pointed her arm at her chair and raised her hand, the chair lifted with her hand, she made it spin before letting it rest on the ground" her mother started clapping "that's amazing you've improved so much in such a short time" salem chuckled "thanks mam" her father butted in "its too bad you don't have a fire semblance, salem tilted her head in confusion "why", the father chuckled "because your dinners gotten cold" salem pouted "very funny dad" there was a moment of silence then everyone let out a laugh.

After dinner was done the family was watching some tv just enjoying the presence of a whole family salem loved the warmth, they sat there for a few hours before salem started getting tired and decided to go to bed after giving her parents one last hug.

When the sun had finally went down that evening something wasn't right Salem got out of her bed taking her weapon with her; then an almighty roar came from outside, the roar was so powerful it nearly shook the wooden building to the ground; Salem bolted outside to see a massive grim, quite possible the biggest one she ever seen or heard of, it had the appearance of a dragon it had pitch black scales, giant red armour plates covered its entire body it had two huge wings, four massive legs and three throws of giant teeth.

Salem looked at it for a second and without thinking her body started moving in the opposite direction very quickly, until a noise stopped her in her tracks it was a mix of clanging, shooting and shouting; Salem knew straight away who was making that noise, it was her parents fighting tirelessly against this behemoth of a grim. Salem ran straight back she didn't care how frightened she was, it was her parents, they were in danger and she needed to help them but before she could get remotely close her father bellowed as loud as he could "salem get the hell out off here, run we'll try and hold it off" as soon as he finished saying he started encase himself in electricity; Salem knew it was her father's semblance, she almost took a sigh of relief but then the dragon turned to her father and just stopped while it stared at him one the dragons eyes went silver.

After a moment or two the grim's eye when back to normal then proceeded to charge at the father, just as the grim was about to connect with the father a massive lightning bolt left the father and went straight through the dragon grim's head, for a moment it stopped and just as it was about to fall over the light in its burning red eyes suddenly relit and immediately grabbed the father with his massive claw completely encasing the father.

The mother shouted screams of horror and rage the moisture in the air started to surround her she then turned to her daughter who at this point was frozen on her knees in fear the mother then raised her voice just like her father did "salem I know your scared I am too but if you don't run now were all going to end up dead" Salem shook her head "no mam" she said in a hollowed whimper "I want to stay with you and fight by you to get dad back" she says over her endless stream of tears streaming down her face, her mother turned to her again with a sad, barely-there smile "I know you would sweetie"

just as she said it a sphere of water started surrounding her, the water was swirling violently around her; the dragon's eye went silver and you could almost make out a crude grin on its horrifying face this sent waves of pure dread straight through Salem's heart; once again the grim's eye went back to normal then charged. The mother waited till the last moment and encased the grim's head with a massive sphere of water in the attempt to drown it. The dragon struggled for a bit but swung its tail whipping the mother into a tree completely shattering her aura, knocking her out. Salem started to scream at the dragon "leave her alone!" the grim merely puffed hot air towards the small creature before picking up her mother in its claw encasing her as well.

In that moment Salem's body started moving towards this monstrosity with an uncanny speed, she had run out of tears to cry. In a blind rage she held her weapon in both hands she subconsciously activated her semblance then threw herself towards the dragon, then in one motion she spin slashed right down its eye causing a black blood to bleed profusely as it screamed with an almighty roar, the girl now had its full attention. Salem instinctively went to block which turned out to be the right call as the dragon used its clutched claw as a fist and punched her, she soared backwards and landed back on the ground with a flip landing on her knee, she lifted her weapon again ready to face the dragon again just as she was about to charge again.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder, Salem jumped out of her skin; she turned around to find a tall grey haired man with a cane and oddly enough a cup of coffee, she hysterically shouted "get out of here it extremely dangerous!" the man almost barely acknowledged the little girls statement, took a sip of his coffee and said quite softly and plainly "what kind of man would I be if I let a little girl such as yourself fight a monster such as that" as he finished speaking he proceeded to stand in front of the girl.

Salem at this point was completely frozen, she was in a mix of pure confusion and terror for the man "ah…" just before she could speak again the grey-haired man moved at a speed Salem's eyes could not keep up with, in a moment he was stood in front of this massive monstrosity "you're a big one" he said bashfully. The dragon still furious with his eye being slashed it roared right at the strange newcomer who was standing before him, it went to punch him just like he did with the smaller creature but before it could hit the man was at his eye level then flicked his cane there was a brief moment of silence and then a black diagonal line appeared across its face followed by a torrent of black blood. The beast went in a frantic rage for a solid minute swinging wildly at the man.

the man did not attack again but instead just dodged and observed, then suddenly it just stopped then turn properly to face his opponent the man had noticed that his eye had turned silver once more; Salem had seen that eye twice too many times for her to know that wasn't good she shouted "lookout those eyes are dangerous".

Salem tried to move but her legs were frozen, the man adjusted his glasses just observing the beast for what seemed like an eternity they just stared at each other, the beasts eye went back to normal but keeping its composure it took a step back from the man and stood on its hind legs it then turned its head to the even smaller creature .

the man had clicked what it was about to do, he proceeded to get back to the girl as quickly as he could; the dragon began sucking in a lot of air, its mouth started to glow a bright orange; the man was only a few feet from Salem then the dragon let out a massive column of fire towards the girl, it was quick but so was the man he grabbed the girl then jumped up carrying them as high as he could but underestimated the height of the fire blast, he turned to the girl with a sad look "sorry young one".

Salem shook her head and said in a weary voice "I've got this" to the man's surprise the girl raised her hand and threw themselves higher. They just barely made it over the cone of fire, slightly singeing the man's coat, he turned towards the dragon which had already left. the man raised an eyebrow "it used the girl as bait to get me away from it hmm interesting" he thought to himself; as the fire dissipated beneath them, they descended back to the ground.

Once their feet hit the ground reality began "my parents are gone" salem said openly wailing as loud as she could the tears had returned tenfold; the man turned to the girl he let out an almost sympathetic sigh and said "what is your name young one" the man said in the softest voice he could muster, the girl looked at the man with devasted eyes "S…Salem" she said in a soft gravelly voice, her voice box was scratched with all of the wailing.

The man looked at the girl in the eyes and said "I am sorry for what happened to you child you've suffered something no child should be forced to see, truly I am terribly sorry I wish I had gotten here sooner I knew it was important when two veteran huntsmen called me for assistance" just as he said that the girl cut him off and said "what do you mean they called you? Who are you?" she says a she sniffs and silently sobs waiting for a reply; the man spoke with a more formal tone "my name is professor Ozpin headmaster at beacon academy and your parents were close pupils of mine, I told them if ever they need my help whenever it may be I'll come running I just wasn't expecting this nor the outcome".

The girl looked in disbelief for a moment and it clicked in her head he was telling the truth, she did not know how she knew just something in his eyes told her so "so what will you do now miss velaros" her head shot up at the sound of her last name being called by the man not moments ago way a complete stranger to her but the man's question burrowed deep in Salem's mind "I don't know" she said looking at the man "I just want to curl up into a ball and forget this night ever happened" Ozpin looked at the broken, defeated girls and sighed again "are you sure because that's not what I saw a moment ago" the girl perked her head up again and looked at him with a sad-puzzled look "what do you mean?".

The grey haired man looked at her and said "if you truly wished to just curl up into a ball and forget you would of let that grim just take your parents away without a fight, but no you steeled yourself in that moment, with no hesitation in your action, managed to actually landed a critical blow on that grim a feat even a master huntsmen wouldn't dare to try, then later when the creature let out his fire breath when even I was about to accept our fate, you did not, you channelled the last of your aura into your semblance and lifted us to safety, now to me if someone is fighting that hard to keep themselves alive not only for themselves but for others that tells me this person wants to live and protect that which they hold dear and that miss velaros is the essence of being a huntress".

Salem just sat there listening to every word the professor said and it lit a fire in the young girl, but was quickly extinguished with the realisation "but I failed that thing took my parents to god knows where and I wasn't able to do anything about it, can you call failure the essence of being a huntress", she sank her head into her knees and begins sobbing quietly again; the professor turned around and said with no hint of sadness, it actually had pride in his tone "of course he said" the girls head shot up again "failure no matter how big or small hurts, naturally the bigger the failure the bigger the impact" the girl's head began lowering again "but" he said confidently "if you can rise above that failure you can use it as a foothold to keep climbing towards your goal but never forgetting where you plant your feet that is how we truly learn from our mistakes".

The girl at this point had stopped crying and was looking straight at the man " that grim came of its own accord and your parents with the pride of both huntsmen and huntress they knew they would not survive there only goal was keeping you alive and they did" in that moment a light struck across Salem's eyes and she stood up for the first time and Ozpin turned around "so where I too am in great sorrow for what happened I can look to your parents with pride knowing they did everything they could and I'm equally proud of you too you may not be a fully-fledged huntress" as Ozpin continued a small smile started appearing on his face "but the skill , quick assessment and determination I saw in you tonight made it clear your more than qualified to attend my school if you wanted, it's not your family but it could certainly be your home"

Salem stopped and pondered what Ozpin had said which was a lot to process along with the current state of affairs she turned to where her house used to be now it was a burning pile of wood and ash, she then turned to Ozpin and said softly with only a slight sniff she said "anywhere is better than here right now, I haven't decided to join you school yet ill need some time to think on that" Ozpin with the small smile on his face walked over to the girl and stuck his hand out "of course take all the time you need" the girl gave one final sniff before straightening her face, hair, and eyes "thank you professor Ozpin".

 **That's the end of chapter 1 I hope you liked it Thank you for reading and I'll see you in the next chapter.**


	2. Chapter 2

S.C.E.N

 **Hello everyone and welcome to the second chapter, thank you for reading my story and baring with it as I continue to try and approve my writing**

 **Chapter 2** **new beginnings**

The dragon had begun charging the girl, but she was focused as it got close Salem ran in between its legs swiftly then once she was passed it she jumped on its tail and began running up the grim's back. The behemoth twist and turned but it couldn't shake the little creature. Her stance was strong and unwavering, Salem continued her sprint to the dragon's head while trying to cut her way along but proved to be difficult due to the grim's extremely tough armour plates, but she tried non the less. Once she reached the neck the armour plates separated presumably to allow the neck to move freely, Salem saw her chance to do some damage she started to spin her twin glaive and planted it deep in to its neck.

The dragon roared in both rage and pain, it started thrashing even more violently. It started crashing into trees in the hope to knock off this tiny flee and it worked. As Salem was raising her weapon for another attack, the grim crashed into a thick tree which made Salem stumbled and fall off, the dragon wasted no time, it grabbed her as she fell. The grim lifted the girl to its eyeline and for a moment the two stared at each other before the dragon roared directly at her face, this cause a flood of sheer terror to rise in Salem "this is it" she thought to herself "I've done my best and it wasn't enough" as tears started to fall from her face. The dragon opened its mouth to reveal three rows of massive serrated teeth on the top and bottom and placed Salem in its mouth, Salem struggled but it was no good ' _she was going to be eaten',_ as the dragon closed down its massive jaw. Something snapped in Salem, in a moment of both terror and adrenaline she raised her weapon and stab the dragon in the roof of its mouth. The sudden instance of pain made the grim spit Salem out with such force she slammed into a tree and broke her aura, the dragon took a moment to collect its self then noticed the girl slummed on a tree, she wasn't moving so the dragon got up on its hind legs sucked in a huge wave of air; Salem could only sit there waiting as her leg had been broken from the fall, the dragon went back on all fours and let out a huge fire breath towards Salem as it was coming her way she closed her eyes and the fire engulfed her.

Salem sat up in a cold sweat, it was dark and was very disoriented then it dawned on her it had been a dream, well more of a nightmare, no definitely a nightmare. Taking a few moments to collect herself she turned to her clock, 4:30am and Salem let out a huge sigh "really" resigning her fate from going back to sleep she got out of her bed and went into the shower. The hot water helped to get her awake and relax her a bit, afterwards she got dressed she wore a black long-sleeved t-shirt with a light grey leather jacket that goes to just below the top of her thigh, light grey tracksuit pants, trainers and her weapon was attached to a holstered across the bottom of her back underneath her jacket.

Salem looked in her mirror just to check on her appearance as she stopped and stared at herself for a moment "has it been six months already" she took one last look at her reflections' blue eyes staring back at her before leaving the building. She stepped outside to her surprise it was quite a mild temperature considering the time in the morning; she turned around and took one last look at the building. It was a small bungalow in the centre of the city Ozpin had told her she could stay here until she made up her mind about joining beacon; this was her last day to decide so she wasn't surprised she found herself up so early.

her mind was still racing from the night she lost everything, it was still hard for her to come to terms with what happened and her nightmare only confirmed it but she still tried her best to stay motivated, one of those ways was going on early jogs around the city it cleared the air and helped her to relax; today was no exception so off she went. While on her jog Salem she didn't meet much people on the streets just a few people coming home from a night shift or early starters, jogging past a dust shop she spotted a bald elderly man preparing his store for the day ahead, the man looked up and gave the young woman a small smile and a nod and Salem did the same; this had been her daily routine for a few months now just not usually _this_ early with that done Salem carried on her route.

By the time Salem got to the docks the sun was just under the horizon so she decided to wait and watch the sun rise, she found a nice bench that overlooked the sea and took a moment to appreciate the celestial being, as Salem felt the first ray of sunlight touch her skin it filled her with a sudden joyfulness and she subconsciously started to smile back at the sun.

Later that morning she went to the local café where was working, Ozpin had told Salem that she should do something to occupy her time and so this is what she did, the café wasn't a particularly big place it held about ten round tables each with two seats on each table there was also two sofas in two back corners of the café with two rectangle tables. Salem enjoyed working there it helped her gain some off her lost confidence back and she generally enjoyed talking with the public so she didn't discriminate between humans and faunis, to her they were one and the same though not everyone appreciated it.

The owner of the café was called Robert Trist, a human, middle aged man who just always seemed to be in a good mood for some reason and welcomed all his customers with a smile, he was tall about 6.2ft and quite broad, short brown hair with thick eyebrows and wore a perpetual smile on his face. Salem arrived there a bit earlier than usual today but Robert didn't mind he was happy for the help "so what brings you here this early in the morning Salem, your usually not in for another hour" he said while he prepared the first batch of coffee. Salem was to wiping the table but spoke while doing so "no reason rob, I was just up earlier today and decided to come in and give you a hand before we opened" she stopped and gave Robert a smile before proceeding on to clean the next table. Robert had finished boiling the coffee to the right temperature "well thank you for your help Salem you've been a big help since you started here" Salem stopped again and turned to Robert "no I should be thanking you for letting me work here, I wasn't in the best of places when I found this place and you didn't have to hire me but you did and because you did my life has gotten a lot brighter so thank you" and she gave Robert a bow.

The day turned into night quickly the last few people were just leaving, and Salem was once again cleaning the tables, but she was happily humming to herself while she was doing it, so it didn't seem to bother her. Then she looked at the clock 7:00pm and her eyes grew twice as big as it had just dawned on her she had only five hours to decide Ozpin proposition with that in mind she turned to Robert "hey rob do you mind if can leave now I just remember I have somewhere to be tonight" trying to cover up her worry, Robert turned around with his permanent smile "of course dear, you are already way past your working hours, I tried telling you earlier but you were too busy with the customers and clearly never heard me",

A reddish flush went across Salem's face "oh… I'm sorry… I never heard you I was just so absorbed in my work, well I'm going to get going now" and with that she hung up her apron in the back, dawned her jacket making sure her weapon was still there and left. As she was making her way up the incline up to beacon, she heard a noise, this caught her attention but didn't take any notice, then _CRASH!_ The sound of glass shattering, Salem definitely noticed that, not only that by she noticed where it came from and she bolted in that direction.

"Now I will ask again, give us the dust old man and we won't need to get a special bag for yourself" the bald old man raised his hand and gave the assailant the key, once the key was in his hand, he threw it at one of his guys, "grab the dust gentlemen". They proceeded to unlock the cabinet and started draining it into canisters, while the leader was grabbing the crystals from the main counter an arrow of aura flew past his head and into the far wall everyone turned to look at the arrow in confusion then a voice pieced the dark "leave this man and his property alone".

Salem walked out onto the main street her weapon in bow mode and light was emanating from her fingers; seven figures exited the building, six of them were waring black suits with red ties and black trilbies and the last one who was obviously the leader of this posse he had short blonde hair a black suit also but his one had white stitching round the coat from the bottom, up the zip line, round the neck and over the top of the pockets.

The henchmen all carried bayonetted machine guns while the leader had a what looked like an old fashioned military sword with a black sheath , the blonde moved through the middle of the henchmen till he was in front "well, well, well and who might you be"; Salem eyes snapped onto the leaders' "just a passer-by" she says as she twists the blades back in the normal places "okay… get her". The man snapped his fingers and two guys move forward and ready their weapons.

Salem moved two of her fingers upwards which caused the barrels of both guns to bend upwards making their guns useless, both men looked at each other and then ran up to Salem in an attempt to stab her with their bayonets but she just smiled and dashed diagonally with her weapon low to the ground tripping him up then she spun the weapon and cracked the other guy in the head with the back of the blade knocking him out, using the momentum of the recoil she planted the other side of the weapon down to where the guys head was knocking him out. She turned to the blonde leader with a small smile oh her face "so are we going to call this a night gentleman".

The expression on the man changed from very cocky to a bit annoyed "tsk not bad little goose, boys surround her" and with another snap of his fingers the men began taking their positions around her until they were a in a square position with Salem in the middle. Salem watched and observed the four men's movements, once they had got into their position, she let out a sigh "I guess you guys want to have an intimate relationship with the ground as well" then she twisted her weapon and it separated into two short glaives.

Two of the men pressed a button on their guns and it collapsed into swords, the other two stayed back aiming at Salem waiting for the perfect opportunity to shoot her; as the two men with swords went to attack at the same time from opposite sides, Salem crouched slightly and blocked both blades at the same time, both men were pushing against her weapons causing her to lower further, while Salem was firmly planted the gunmen saw there chance to get a shot in but just before they could pull the trigger Salem let go of her weapons, the sudden lack of resistance caused both the swordsmen to fall into each other just barely stopping themselves form stabbing each other.

Salem saw her opportunity she rolled out underneath the two men picking up one of the glaives just as she stood up one of the gunman pulled the trigger but Salem's reactions were too quick she backflipped just in time and the bullets passed over her, as soon as she came out of the backflip she threw her glaive at the gunman, but he dodged and a smile appeared on his face but so did Salem used her semblance to catch her glaive then directed it back towards the man.

The man lined up another shot but suddenly a was hit in the back of the head with the handle of the glaive and the man shouted in pain then Salem bolted towards at full speed and she jumped, just as the man adjusted himself all he saw was the young girls knee inches of from his jaw then there was blackness, the man dropped to the floor.

Salem wasted no time and ran to the next gunman but he was already lining up his shot but Salem saw a manhole cover and lifted it in front her like a temporary shield and kept running forward the gunman started shooting but was met only with "TANK, TANK, TANK" as the bullets just bounced off of the cover, once the mans' clip was empty Salem turned the cover sideways and threw it with a good bit of force at the man who had no time to react as it cracked off his head completely knocking him out.

Salem turned to the other two guys who had just managed to get to their feet "one last chance to surrender boys". the two men looked at each other "we didn't get paid enough for this" they nodded at each other and ran off into the night.

Salem started walking towards the leader casually putting her weapon back together with her semblance; the leaders' expression changed back to his arrogant smile "well I think we've played enough tonight little goose, don't you think?" Salem held an almost strong smile "sure, does that mean your going to surrender" the blonde man laughed "not quite little one I've only just begun"

As Salem got closer the mans' features became more noticeable then it dawned on her who he was, it was on the television it was said that a master thief was spotted entering Vale and was extremely dangerous, his name was "Jaune ark". Salem was surprised but she continued nonetheless "its over Jaune, turn yourself in or you'll you will be taking a detour to the hospital like your lackeys"; the blonde thief looked at her with the same expression on his face "awe you know who I am that's sweat of you to recognise me but I'm going to have to decline your offer".

Jaune unsheathed his weapon, it was a longsword made with some sort of black steel, in the hilt of the sword was two slots that looked to be in the shape of a crystals. The man rummaged through a bag in his hand until he pulled out a white and a red crystal then slotted them into his weapons' hilt. The weapon started to glow from the hilt a white and red line appeared on both sides of the blade then the energy went up the middle of the blade to the tip. Jaune looked up to Salem "well its fun playing with you but I've got leave this dance for now" and with that he slammed the sword into the ground and a huge steam cloud exploded from the sword causing everything in range including Salem to be blinded with hot steam.

when the steam dissipated Salem immediately started looking for Jaune and spotted him going up a fire escape and immediately activated her semblance and threw herself to the building; she landed behind Jaune who was on the edge of the building "persistent little one aren't you" he then unslotted the white crystal and he swung his sword towards Salem which caused waves of fire rushed towards her. Salem jumped backwards to avoid the flames once she was back on her feet a sudden gust of wind suddenly blasted downwards and to Salem's surprise it was a small bullhead it was hovering just on the edge where Jaune was and he jumped aboard.

Salem tried to follow but Jaune seemed to channel the energy in his weapon to a single point and it expanded into a ball of red energy then threw he it at Salem, as it hit the ground it exploded; a gleeful expression appeared on Jaunes' face but it quickly changed when he saw the dust settle and a large purple barrier appeared.

Behind it was a tall blonde woman with a scowl on her face and behind her was a slightly startled and confused Salem; before Salem could speak the woman flicked what look like a wand of some description and the barrier broke into several purple shards and she fired them at the bullhead causing it to shake but no real damage was done. Jaune shouted to the pilot "looks like we've got a huntress on our tail now, could you give me a hand and I'll fly" there was a moment of silence then a huge sigh "fine I'll shake them off" and they swapped positions.

The two on the roof watched as a new figure in the dark appeared, it looked like a woman in a dress maybe they couldn't tell except her eyes were light blue like ice and before they could react she threw an ice shard at them, it landed by their feet which created a small explosion of ice, they backed up, she threw a few more. Once they were backed up enough she raised her hand and two large ice spikes came out of the ground underneath them, the blonde woman reacted immediately moving both her and Salem out of the way. The woman turned to Jaune "deal with your own messes next time", Jaune gave them woman a weak laugh "sure thing".

Salem saw the bullhead flying away and charged her aura, she held out both her hands and the bullhead stopped dead in its tracks she turned to the woman "do something!? Quickly!" given no time to scowl at the little girl she channelled her power into a massive energy blast and launched it towards the seized bullhead. Before the blast connected it suddenly moved at full speed again and the attack just skimmed past, to her surprise the woman heard a "thud!" and noticed the girl had passed out, the woman went over to check on the girl and sighed "huh it's going to be a long night I hope Ozpin knows what he's doing" with a scowl on her face.

Salem woke up, she was sitting in a chair with head on a table it took a minute and then it dawned on her she had no Idea where she was, and she immediately stood up in a panic, had she been kidnapped? had she been reported to the police? was she dead? Not knowing how to check for the last one she assumed she was still alive at least. A door opened on the other side of the room and a familiar blonde woman walked in "so your finally awake, good because I have some questions for you" Salem just stood there for a moment and the blonde woman indicated to the chair she had just stood up from "take a seat please" and Salem did as instructed, she sat down and the woman followed suit on the other side.

There was a moment of silence then the woman spoke up "what is your name", "Salem… Salem velaros" she said in a worried tone; the woman started writing down on a clipboard the woman spoke up again "well miss velaros what you did tonight was very well done" Salem raised her head rose up to look at the woman and a small smile began to form but was completely shot down when the woman said "but your actions were too reckless you could of put you and others peoples lives in great danger" Salem shot back "but they started it" the woman completely dismissed what Salem had said "in any case normally I would let you go home now, but someone would like to talk to you first.

Just as she finishes a familiar tall grey-haired man, cane and coffee in hand walked into the room "good evening miss Velaros"; Salem couldn't believe her eyes "professor Ozpin?" the headmaster couldn't help but chuckle to himself quietly "how are you feeling after your "night out"", then It click Salem immediately shot up from her seat "did Jaune and his partner escape what happened". The professor looked at Salem "they got away unfortunately, but I didn't ask you if you could remember anything, all I asked was if you were alright because going through aura exhaustion is not easy for some people".

she looked eyes with Ozpin "so that's why I blacked out, I was so focused on stopping those guys I didn't even notice my aura was drained, in any case yes professor I'm fine now just tired" Ozpin raised an eyebrow "speaking of stopping those guys it looks like your just as skilled as ever" he shows Salem CCVT camera footage of her fight, she looked away after about a minute "I know what your going to ask me and I already have an answer", Ozpins' expression changed to a slightly curios look, "oh and what is your answer" Salem looked at him with determined eyes "the people that got away was my fault and I realise that but just as you said to me that night, I will use this failure as my first foothold to reaching my goal, and my goal is to stop people like the ones I faced tonight and I've I know the best way for me improve is by joining beacon" and she put her hand towards Ozpin "I accept your offer professor Ozpin" Ozpin gave her a smile and shook Salem's hand "welcome to Beacon".

 **And that's it for the second chapter I hope you all enjoyed it, thank you for reading and I'll see you in the next chapter.**


	3. Chapter 3

**S.C.E.N**

 **Hello and welcome to the third chapter I am terribly sorry for the very long wait for this chapter thank you for reading this story of mine, I know it isn't the best written story, but I hope to improve as this story develops so thank you for reading and your patience.**

 **Chapter 3 the first day**

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Salem slowly and sluggishly turned to her alarm clock 6:00am "I guess the day has finally come" she says as she gets up and walks to the bathroom. Half an hour later she exited the bathroom in her huntress gear which her light grey leather jacket under it she wore a black long sleeve t-shirt and a matching light grey skirt that goes to her knees with light grey thigh high socks and black trainers.

Salem decided to go for her normal jog before the initiation ceremony which was at 9am. She decided to take her normal route, also she wanted to go past the dust store she was at the other night. Salem made it to the dust shop and it was a wreck and not just the store but the surrounding road and buildings. A wave of guilt rushed across her body which made her feel like she was almost chocking but then she raised her head "no, I don't regret what I did, I did the best I could" her self-conviction made her feel a bit better then she proceeded with her jog.

Salem made it to the dock, but something was different there was someone sitting on the bench where Salem would normally sit by herself. It was a girl with beautiful long black hair, she couldn't make out much more from the back, so Salem decided to jog past her and continue.

The black-haired girl sat on the bench humming to herself when a flash of grey caught the corner of the eye, she stopped humming and turned her head to see what is was that had caught her attention and in that moment the both girls locked eyes with each other and in a moment that seemed to last an eternity she just looked at the two sapphires glistening back at her.

Salem was also transfixed to this girls' amber eyes, but this caused her to stumble and trip which broke both of the girl's gazes. The girl got up quickly to check on Salem; "are you alright" she says as she extends her hand down to the grey-haired girl. Salem looked up at the girl and gave her a slightly embarrassed smile "yeah I'm fine thank you" and grabbed the girls hand and pulled herself up.

Salem looked at the girl with a small smile "sorry for disturbing your peace" the girl shook her head "no its alright I wasn't really doing anything I just wanted to watch the sunrise here". Salem was actually surprised by her answer "really? I come here pretty often but I don't think I have ever seen you before" the girl smiled back "it's my first day here actually my shuttle landed earlier than I expected so I decided to explore the area then as I got here the light was just starting to form over the horizon and I decided to watch the sunrise". Salem put her hand to her chin "ah" she says, "that explains it well then do you mind if I watch the sunrise with you I love coming here to watch it" the girl smile widened "sure I'd like that" and she gestures her hand to the bench and the two sat next to each other and waited for the sun.

The two sat in silence for little while just absorbing each others presence; then the first glow of the sun burst over the horizon and struck the two girls' eyes and both of their jaws dropped a little. "this view never ceases to blow me away every time" the black-haired girl turned her head to Salem and smiled "yeah it truly is beautiful". Salem shot up from the bench "I just realised I never introduced myself I'm so sorry that must have been very awkward; my name is Salem it's a pleasure to meet you" Salem extended her hand to the girl. The girl gave a small chuckled and stood up as well and turned to sapphire-eyed girl with soft eyes and a smile and grabbed Salem's hand "my name is Cinder and the feeling is mutual" shaking Salem's hand.

Salem let go of Cinder's hand "so this is your first time in vale, what brings you here Cinder" Cinder looked at Salem's eyes "I came here to join beacon, I'm a huntress from Vacuo". Salem's eyes widened, and the sunlight bounced of Cinders' appearance she was wearing an all-black blazer with white trims and white buttons goes from her waist to her top of her chest with black jeans with white stitching and black boots. Salem was taking stood there for a moment and then she smiled "really, that's amazing I too am joining beacon today" Cinder's smile went ear to ear "well that is surprise well then do you want to walk to beacon with me I don't know vale very well" Salem nodded "sure" and she checked her watch and her mouth went wide. 8:30am Salem shouted with worry "oh shit we're going to be late!"

Cinder was startled by Salem's sudden change in mood "what are we going to do Salem?" Salem turned to Cinder "I have an idea but it's not going to be pretty" Cinder, confused turned her head sideways "what do you mean?" Salem held Cinder's hand "I can use my semblance to get us there but there is a huge possibility we will crash" Cinder was even more confused but shook her head "it doesn't matter we will figure it out when if it happens" Salem looked into Cinder's eyes "okay hold onto my waist and hold tight".

A small red flush went across Cinder's face, but she nodded, she put her arms round Salem and gripped her tight. When Cinder grabbed Salem her face also went a bit red but shook it off, she closed her eyes and Salem's aura enveloped both of the girls. Cinder watched as a white energy surrounded her body and a then both of them started to float; Cinder looked at Salem "this is amazing and all but we're not moving very fast", Salem opened her eyes and looked at Cinder and gave her a small smirk "I'm just letting you adjust but now this is where you need to hold tight I'm going to throw us very fast".

Cinder's eyes widened but before she could protest Salem flicked her hand back and both of the went as far back as the water line and then flicked her hand forward very quickly and the two were launched at incredible speed towards beacon.

"hurry Neo, the induction will start soon" the voice was met with the sound of furious typing and a scroll was shoved in her face it read "really Emerald you're the one who got us lost in the first place" she moved her scroll to reveal a pouty face. Emerald scratched the back of her head and she chuckled "yeah your right". Neo started typing again and Emerald look at it "what's that Emerald" Emerald look puzzled "what's, what?" neo tapped her shoulder and pointed to the sky and Emerald squinted and a black and grey spot was in the sky and it was coming closer at it was moving very fast in their direction. Neo ran in front of emerald and extended her arms sideways and a dome of energy formed around the two girls, but the shield never fully formed and a moment later CRASH!

"hey… hey are you alright" Salem opened her eyes to find her on top of a tan skinned girl and her face lit up with a torrent of red and she got off Emerald "I'm so sorry" before the girl respond Salem has and turned to a collapsed Cinder and Neo "cinder are you ok?" Cinder opened her eyes and a very confused and surprised neo just stared at her, cinder stood up immediately stood up and stood back and started bowing furiously "I'm so, so sorry for falling on you please forgive me" neo stood up and tilted her head "speaking of falling " cinder turned to the tanned girl "why did you to suddenly fall from the sky" Cinder blushed slightly and pointed to Salem.

Salem blushed as the three girls turned to her "well we were going to be late, so I used my semblance to get us here, unfortunately I lost control and we ended up crashing down here, I am very sorry for causing you two such trouble" and Salem bowed as well. Emerald started waving her hands "no its alright as long as you two are all right, you're lucky Neo was here she broke your fall with her semblance".

Both Salem and cinder turned to Neo and both bowed to her "thank you, Neo was it?" Neo started waving her arms and started typing really fast and showed it to the girls "no, no its no trouble I'm just glad you two are safe" and gave them a small mile. Salem and Cinder looked at each other and shrugged "well okay, again sorry" emerald walked up to Salem and extended her arm and stuck her hand out "its fine really we're fine, I'm Emerald by the way and who might you two falling stars be?" Salem smiled at Emerald at took her hand "I'm Salem and this is Cinder" Cinder gave a small wave and Salem shook Emerald's hand.

A moment or two past and Salem decided to check her watch again and then she screamed "ahhhhh we've only fifteen minutes before the induction" everyone had the same shocked expression on their face like a lightning bolt shot across their eyes and they all ran in unison to the entrance.

When the four reached the entrance hall it was packed to the rafters with students of all orientations, the room was filled with mixed conversations making it inaudible. Then the room went silent as everyone fixed their eyes on the tall grey man walking up to a mic in the middle of the stage; Salem shot a short smile at Ozbin and he spoke "I will make this brief, first of all I would like to thank each and every one for making it into beacon, this is your first true step in becoming huntsmen and huntresses, your time here will shape what kind of huntsmen you will ultimately become so train hard, study hard I look forward to see all of your progress".

After Ozbin spoke he moved to the side and a tall blonde woman went up to the mic and spoke "welcome students my name is professor Goodwitch, all first-year students will gather in the main atrium for tonight in the meantime take this time to familiarise yourself with beacon and its facilities you are all dismissed". Emerald folded her arms "she pretty intense isn't she" it was like the professor had a sixth sense and looked at Emerald gave her a small scowl "eeek" Emerald screeched quietly and she promptly left pushing Neo out the room with her and they were gone leaving Salem and Cinder alone.

Cinder and Salem left the entrance hall "what should we do now" Cinder asked; Salem looked at Cinder "I well I'm going to take the professors advise and explore the campus, what are you going to do?" Cinder looked down at the ground then back up to Salem do you mind if I come with you" Salem shook her "no, I would like that besides I like you Cinder, I think we will be great friends" Shot her eyes at Salem's eyes and she gave Salem a warm smile "I think so too" Salem blushed a bit from Cinder's smile " well then" she extended her arm towards Cinder "proper introductions are in order, my name is Salem Velaros and I'm glad I crashed with you" cinder chuckled and took Salem's hand "my name is Cinder Fall and I'm glad I fell with you" Cinder blushed a little after her comment and the two shook hands once more.

Night began to set in and the two were on the library balcony watching the sunset "I can't decide what's more beautiful a sunrise or a sunset" Salem said as she smiled at the sun; Cinder looked at Salem "I'm not sure they're both beautiful but I think you will agree with me that watching it with someone is makes it that bit more special" Salem nodded at Cinder's answer and then started stretching her arms "we should probably get going go to the atrium its getting late and I'd hate to get on professor Goodwitch's bad side" cinder chuckled "yeah lets get going" and the two left for the atrium.

When they arrived at the atrium it was pretty busy, and it looked like the whole hall had been converted into a huge dormitory with sleeping bags and lanterns at every point in the room. As they walked in, they heard a familiar voice "if it isn't the two falling stars" they turned to see Emerald walking towards them with a closed eyed smile and giving a small wave with Neo behind her also giving a small smile "oh hey Emerald and Neo how are you" Salem smiled back "oh we're fine we just finished our tour of the place" Neo started typing again with a slightly agitated face and showed it to the three girls "I'm not sure getting lost counts as a tour Emerald".

Everyone gave a small laugh at Neo's comment but then Cinder stopped and looked at Neo "I'm sorry if what I'm about to ask is personal Neo but why don't you speak" the air suddenly shifted in the group and Neo's head lowered with obvious sadness; Emerald moved in between Neo and Cinder she first turned to Neo "do you want them to know Neo?" Neo looked up at Cinder and Salem then a few moments of silence past and looked back at Emerald and nodded.

Emerald then turned her head to Cinder "first thing I need to say is please don't mention this to other students Neo is extremely uncomfortable talking about it okay" the two girls nodded "okay the thing is she is a "dust mute" which means at some point In her life she was exposed to dust and was made to ingest it which caused her voice box to be destroyed making her unable to speak so now she just types in her scroll as her means of communicating with others that's all I know about it, like I said she doesn't like to talk about it not even to me"

the girls were in shock they never expected Neo of being a "dust mute" they both thought she was just really shy, they knew that dust mutes existed, but it happens so rarely that its barely even known. Suddenly Cinder fell to her knees and begun crying showing clear signs of distress in her eyes and started chanting quietly "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry miss Ni" before Cinder could wallow any further, she suddenly felt arms wrap around her.

Cinder looked up to see Neo hugging her and she snapped out of whatever was wrong with her. Neo pulled back to reveal her worried expression and showed Cinder her scroll "its ok Cinder I have come to terms with what happened to me so please don't cry" cinder stopped crying and sniffed "I'm sorry for asking such a personal question" Neo shook her head and started typing "no its alright I told Emerald to tell you" Cinder was still upset watching Neo being forced to type "but please don't share this with the other students if they ask you just say I'm really shy" cinder nodded "sure" Neo gave her a smile and simply typed "thank you"

About ten minutes later a familiar woman's voice started speaking from a loudspeaker "all first years its time for bed your initiation trial and team assignment will begin tomorrow at 9am so get plenty of rest and I expect you all at the cliff edge at least 10 minutes before, that is all good night students"

Emerald smiled at the three girls "I'm pretty sure we've found are team what do you guys think" everyone looked at each other and smiled and they all said in unison "yeah" then Salem spoke "I mean it does depend on the trial we do this year; last year I was told that they threw them in a forest and made them search for relics and as far as team assignment it was based on who the people they ran into while searching for the relics".

Emerald kind of deflated after Salem's comment "what?, I hope its not that trial then" Salem chuckled a little "yeah me neither, well all we can do now is wait in see what the professors have instore for us tomorrow " Emerald perked up a bit "yeah I guess your right well then everyone I say we take the professors advise a get some shut eye" everyone nodded and climbed into their sleeping bags and turned off the light.

Salem turned on her back and stared up into the blackness and thought to herself "what a first day I've had, it looks like this might be the place I belong after all; mother… father I will become stronger and I promise I'll save you" a single tear fell from Salem's eyes as she closed them and drifted off to sleep.

 **And that's it for the third chapter I hope you all enjoyed it, I know I'm enjoying writing it and your comments are very helpful so thank you for your help. On another note if you are a returning reader you may notice that I've been editing the previous chapters with changes like changing a word or two and adding spacing to my story so please bear with it all I'm trying to do is optimise your reading experience, so you may notice time to time that a certain chapter might change slightly, I apologise for the inconvenience. Thank you for reading**


	4. Chapter 4

S.C.E.N

 **Hello everyone and welcome to the fourth chapter thank you for reading.**

 **Chapter 4: Emerald forest part 1**

Morning broke over beacon, the campus was silent all the first years were all still asleep barring a few empty sleeping bags. Salem was the first of the four to awaken; she sat up and stretched, then checked her watch and let out a very quiet sigh, but she decided to get up, she threw on her light grey tracksuit pants and her black long-sleeved t shirt and left the atrium.

Salem was walking through the hallways when she heard a pair of footsteps followed by a tapping noise on the ground, she turned around so see professor Ozpin sipping his coffee "good morning miss Velaros" Salem was surprised by Ozpin's sudden appearance "g-good morning professor" and gave him a small bow. Ozpin adjusted his glasses "how was your first day" Salem thought back to the previous day "I think I made the right choice by coming here". Ozpin nodded "from what I've gathered you have already made acquaintances" Salem smiled "yeah I have" Ozpin gave Salem a small smile "well that is good, well I best be off, I will see you at the clifftop for your initiation trial later" and he walked off.

Salem returned to the atrium and woke her newfound friends up "come on guys wake up we've got to get ready" the other three girls lazily sat up and doing various stretches and yawning, Emerald rubbed her eyes "what time is it Salem". Salem checked her watch "its seven thirty" Emerald sighed "that's too early what's the rush" Salem sighed "well by the time we get organised with our gear and eaten there will not be a lot of time to get to the cliff edge". Neo nudged Emerald with her foot and showed her scroll and shrugged "she has a point Emerald" Emerald sighed in defeat "huh fiiine" Cinder chuckled a little, Salem gave them all a smile "alright then let's get going".

The four girls were at their lockers; Cinder went into a cubicle to change; suddenly something caught Salem's eye and turned to see a tall red-haired boy with a red shirt, with a black waistcoat with red buttons and black trousers, Salem gasped "Adam?" The boy referred to Adam Smiled at Salem "well if it isn't Salem, I see you made it into beacon" Salem rubbed the back of her head "yeah I got an exceptional offer, I'm surprised to see you Adam how have you been" Salem couldn't tell him the real reason she got in. Adam continued to smile "really, that is amazing I knew I seen something in you" Salem gave Adam a small smile.

Emerald was listening and found an opening "hey Salem who is this guy" Salem turned back to Emerald and gestured one hand to Adam "this is Adam Taurus he was my senior at Signal he helped me train". Adam gave Emerald a small bow "I see you have already made friends that's great Salem" Salem turned back to Adam "yeah I think this will be good for me" Adam smiled and turned to Emerald "look after her for me" Emerald saluted "you got it". Salem puffed her cheeks and blushed "I'm not a kid Adam" Adam chuckled and put his hand on Salem's head "I know, well I better get going" then Adam walked off.

 _Ten minutes later_

The girls were already in their full combat gear. Salem wore her normal gear with her weapon holstered on her back. Cinder had her black blazer and black jeans, her weapon was a whip made out of a flexible metal with a button on the top of the handle, and it attached to her belt.

Emerald wore a dark green leather skinsuit with two white straps that run parallel down her body to the ends of her boots with pouches around her belt and her weapon was two gauntlets with retractable blades and a band of various sizes of blades around the top of her thigh.

Lastly Neo wore a white jacket with a black hood, black pants, white leather boots and under her jacket is a black shirt, her weapon was a silver short lightweight sniper rifle with a reinforced steel recoil pad at the back, etched into the side of the barrel was the words "my voice".

The four girls looked at each other then all nodded in unison and made their way to the clifftop. As the four walked Cinder was inspecting Emeralds outfit "isn't that outfit a bit tight on you" Emerald chuckled a little then turned to Cinder "I like to be as flexible as I can and besides my blades aren't my "only" weapon in a fight" she gave a wink at Cinder and flash of red ran over her face.

Emerald then inspected Cinder "what about you, isn't your gear a bit stifling I mean it looks good on you, but you look a bit too covered up". Suddenly Cinder's expression dropped to an almost sad tone and you could almost see a hint of terror in her eyes, but then she felt a warm hand on her shoulder and it broke her state "are you ok Cinder" she look up to see Salem with a concerned expression. Cinder pressed her hand on Salem's hand and smiled "yeah I'm fine, to answer your question Emerald this is more or less the uniform for the students in Vacuo I have made a few modifications to it".

Emerald gave Cinder a slightly surprised expression "ahh I see, sorry if I made you uncomfortable Cinder" Cinder shook her head "no its fine Emerald" Then Neo pushed forward in front of the girl with a worried expression and she held up her scroll "if you two are quite done with fashion design, we should get going". Cinder and Emerald both looked at Neo; Emerald rubbed the back of her head "yeah you're right Neo" and everyone nodded at Emerald's response and ran for the clifftop.

When the four arrived, there was bunch of students surrounding the clifftop all chatting away about what the trial might be and how the teams are going to be picked, the girls were also curious about what was going to happen. Then a voice spoke behind them "good morning students I see everyone is here" and everyone turned around to see Professor Ozpin sipping his coffee along with Professor Goodwitch who was just standing by him with a stern expression.

Professor Goodwitch stepped forward "good morning I'm only going over this once so pay attention, this is the Emerald forest and inside it there is a temple inside with relics, your objective will be to simply obtain this relic unlike last year the partner and team selection will be based on compatibility so we will be monitoring all of your actions and reviewing them during the initiation but first Professor Ozpin would like to say a few words.

Ozpin stepped forward, taking a swig of coffee "thank you professor Goodwitch for your explanation; students listen well, the forest is full of dangers most notably is the grim that reside within the forest, do not hesitate to cut down every grim that comes your way or you will die, this test is to not only prove your compatibility but your survival and combat skills as well".

"Students I wish you the best of luck"

The girls were surprised by what the professors had said; "well that was intense" Emerald was the first to break the silence everyone nodded. Salem noticed Adam a few spaces behind her. He was talking with two girls and another boy with red hair and a black bowler hat, the girls appeared to look like twins one had a red and black dress and the other had a white dress with a fur collar.

Salem gave Adam a small wave; Adam noticed and waved back Salem nodded then moved to a platform.

After about ten minutes later everyone was on the launch pads ready to go; Ozpin stood forward "students I wish you all the best of luck, begin" and one by one the launch pads started launching students in to the sky.

Salem braced herself for the launch, a moment later, she was thrust towards the forest she opened her weapon and split it into two, using her semblance she slowed herself and planted her blades into a tree and climbed up onto a branch "phew, that was simple enough ok better find go find someone" and she dropped from the tree. As Salem landed she stopped to hear her surroundings encase he could hear someone, but then Salem heard a low growl behind her followed by several more.

Instinctively she jumped forward and turned around and four beowolfs jumped out they had black with red spikes running up their arms and a red mask with black scars all over it and eyes that were burning with red Salem ginned "you fellas wouldn't happen to now where the ruins are". The first Beowulf leaped towards Salem and with her two blades by her sides, she slid under it slicing its stomach from head to tail and dropped to the ground dead: Salem then stood up and turned to face the other three "I guess not".

Salem reattached her weapon and dashed forward towards the middle one and it went to swipe with his right claw but Salem dodged to the left and spun the blade upwards cutting its head off. The other two were stalking her from either side keeping Salem in the middle; her eyes were switching left and right then both pounced at the same time so Salem back flipped and the two collided with each other, they both got up turned to face Salem and both of their eyes went silver.

Salem immediately froze up, she knew what those eyes meant before she could react one of the beowolfs almost seemed to chuckle in very demonic tone and it did something Salem knew was impossible; it started to speak.

" _I… Remember… you"_

Salem was confused and terrified by the grims words; she had never met this grim before and yet for some reason she knew it was not lying "what do you mean I've never seen you before" Salem thought she was going mad; actually speaking to a grim". The grim chuckled menacingly "oh but you have my dear; in the forest". Salem's eyes went wide her pupils were physically shaking with rage "w…" before Salem could speak the grim spoke again in its deep demonic tone.

"I believe your name is Salem if I recall your parents scream…"

"WHERE ARE THEY, TELL ME!" Salem interrupting the grim. The grim started laughing maniacally; suddenly a metal cable wrapped round its neck, and with a yank the grims head separated from its shoulders, followed by a ball of fire, which collided with the other grim, and burned to ash.

Salem dropped to her knees then turned her head to face this surprise attacker only to find Cinder emerging from the trees running towards Salem; crouching down beside her holder Salem's hand "are you all right I heard your scream and came as fast as I could" Salem couldn't process what was going on her head full of confusion and rage but managed to reign herself in a bit "yeah I'm fine now thanks Cinder" Cinder didn't believe Salem for a second, even though she hadn't picked up what she said the desperation in her voice was something she as familiar with, so she pressed a little bit further "are you sure". Salem looked up at cinder and met her eyes; there was still a hint of terror in her eyes, but she gave cinder a weak smile "I'm fine, that grim just brought up an unpleasant memory that's all and I froze" Salem picked herself off the ground "but now I'm all thawed out and ready to kick some ass".

Cinder gave her a smile and stood next to her then both ran into the forest together.

Emerald was strolling through the forest whistling cheerfully when she heard heavy thumping coming towards her, she readied herself attaching two long blades onto her gauntlets and retracted them back, so it only extended to half its size.

As the thumping came closer the ground started to shake and then emerged a large grim that vaguely resembled a rhinoceros but instead of skin it had hard red segmented armour plates all over its body the tops of its back had several spike running down its spine and three horns on its head that curved back on itself on the top one just above the nose, one on its forehead and one on the top of its head.

"damn just my luck I run into a Trino" Emerald thought to herself but, proceeded to smile at it "and what do I owe the pleasure of your company sir" it stared at her with furious red eyes then it started paw the ground preparing to charge. In an uncanny burst of speed the Trino raced towards Emerald but moments before it should have made contact Emerald disappeared and it ploughed into a big thick tree getting its horns stuck in the tree.

Emerald appeared behind the Trino laughing "Olé, that's one point to me big guy" and she thrust her gauntlet into a space between its armour stabbing into its flesh. The grim roared furiously and pulled itself free leaving a big hole in the tree. It turned to face Emerald again but this time it leaped towards her and smashed his head into the ground Emerald jumped out of the way but the shockwave produced by the Trino caused the ground to shake causing Emerald to lose her balance a little and in the second it took her to right herself the Trino swung its head sideways slamming into Emeralds chest, which sent her flying into a tree hard casing the wind in her lungs to escape "guhh that hurt, I think you got a rib there buddy" she coughed a small bit of blood and sat herself up against the tree the Trino started to paw the ground again this time there wasn't much Emerald could do except watch.

It charged forward pounding the ground hard, eager for the kill. Emerald closed her eyes then she heard a noise like energy followed by a quiet 'crack' of a gun; she opened her eyes to fine her surrounded by a ball of energy she looked at the Trino which was suddenly thrashing around wildly then noticed its eye had been shot; Emerald smiled "what took you so long".

Emerging from a far away bush Neo stood up and pulled down her white hood with angry pouty face then pointed her rifle towards the grim Emerald nodded with a grin and stood up clutching her ribs "your right ill get this done, thanks for the assist" Neo nodded with a smile. Emerald looked at the Trino and ran towards it. It was still reeling from the sudden loss of its eye but calmed down as Emerald approached, it went to thrust its head forward but Emerald again disappeared a moment passed then, then the Trino felt its hind leg being sliced, then the other. This caused the grim to drop and roar with rage, it tried to turn to face the attacker but three rifle shots hit its face directing its attention away as it turned its head Emerald appeared on the other side and sliced one of its front hamstrings and it collapsed completely defenceless.

Emerald moved to the front of its head it turned to look at Emerald with the same fire it its eye "looks like I win big guy better luck next time" and she raised one of her gauntlets aiming a blade towards the working eye and pushed a button on the side which launched a blade from the gauntlet and it pierced through its the grim stopped completely and finally turning to black ash.

Emerald dropped to one knee clutching her side and breathing heavily, neo came running over and put a hand on Emerald's shoulder. Emerald looked up to see neo with a look of worry, she smiled and cupped Neo's hand on her shoulder "I'm fine Neo just catching my breath"

Emerald stood up and turned to Neo "lets get moving and fine the others" Neo frowned with determination and nodded, and they ran towards the centre.

 **Hello readers that's the end of part 1 of the emerald forest I hope you guys enjoyed reading it**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello readers and welcome to chapter 5 I hope you enjoy it thank you for reading**

 **Chapter 5 the Emerald forest part 2**

Salem couldn't get the grims words out of her head; who was this silver eyed tyrant that has plagued her life "Salem duck!" Suddenly coming to and noticed a beowolf leaping at her head on, she dropped to the floor skidding along the ground as small fire blast smashed into the beowolf interrupting the leap and Salem slid underneath it and with an effortless slash cut the bottom half of the grim it dropped to the ground dead.

"phew thanks for that cin", cinder was slightly taking aback by the sudden nickname she stood slightly blushed "its fine just make sure you pay attention to your surroundings" Salem gave cinder a small smile "yeah… thanks for the advice". They continued on their journey for a little while until they came to a cliff edge which led down to an open clearing with a large stone circle in the middle with several alters around it; Salem sighed "I think we found the place " cinder nodded "I think so too but how do we get down" the cliff edge was a good hundred foot sheer drop.

Salem rubbed the back of her head "I could throw us like last time" cinder went slightly pale "maaybe save that for a plan b… or c" Salem made a small pout "well then what do you suggest". Cinder looked around and noticed the cliff gradually rounded down to the clearing but the detour would take a while or as she noticed the cliff seemed to have several holes in it like caves or something and with a small wander found one of the holes that reached the top of the cliff "this might take us down" Salem's ears perked up as she hovered over the edge "oh good this can't go wrong" they both stood at the mouth of the entrance and walked in.

The cave was very dark with only the daylight to see, cinder lifted a finger and a small but bright flame lit her finger like a candle and lit up the cave which now with the light was more of a tunnel. Salem marvelled at the small flame at cinders finger "wow cin that's your semblance right" cinder nodded "it is I can manipulate fire from any point in my body I can even change the temperature so that it doesn't burn, here touch it". Cinder pointed her burning finger towards Salem. She was hesitant but approached the flame and paused "are you certain I won't burn I'm too young for burn scars" cinder chuckled a little "trust me I promise you won't burn; it won't even hurt.

Salem reached out her hand and closed her eyes as her hand hovered over cinders and she waited for a moment for the heat but there was nothing; she opened her eyes and her hand was in the flame licking around her hand, psychologically her brain was telling her it hurts but as she looked there was no damage to the skin, no smell of flesh burning, nothing. Salem stood there for a moment in amazement as the flames danced around her hand "your semblance is beautiful cinder" cinder went redder than her flames "thanks most people are afraid by my flames" Salem looked at cinder "well I mean you gave me your word it wouldn't hurt so I had no reason to be afraid" cinders eyes lit up and she looked away and coughed "well anyway let's keep going shall we; Salem moved her hand away to her side "lets"

While the two made there decent it was clear this was no ordinary tunnel it had intersecting tunnels that formed like crossroads, but they agreed as long as it went down the other directions didn't matter. A moment later a sound started to emanate around the tunnel like skittering but loud skittering both Salem and cinder were still moving down but staying ever vigilant. Suddenly something burst through the wall off the tunnel and kept going as cinder made the flame brighter what they saw was like a train of seemingly endless red armour plates with hundreds and hundreds of legs charging through this new hole, as the legs finally came to an end they heard a noise from behind them like pincers they turned to see a huge pair of mandibles staring at them.

Both girls looked at each other with an equal look of terror and both bolted down the tunnel as this large, long creature chased after them the sound of thousands of legs racing towards them was maddening until they say the light of day from the tunnel and Salem picked both her and cinder and threw them out the exit as fast as she could. The two girls burst from the and landed a good thirty feet away from the exit when a massive centipede like grim came crawling out after them its whole body was covered in red armour plates even the legs were armoured with huge pincers which look like they could sever a tank in half and at the back was two stingers that were dripping with poison and each drop on the ground made a hiss as the ground melted away

As they ran Salem turned to cinder "I knew throwing our self of the cliff was a better option!" cinder turned towards Salem "how was I supposed to know that thing was going to be in there?!, anyway what are we going to do we can't run forever"; they both looked at each other, nodded and both stopped at the same time and turned to the centigrim. Salem turned her weapon into bow mode and cinder charged a large fire ball they both released at the same the attack almost seemed to fuse into each other then it collided with the grimm's head which caused it to halt.

For a moment they thought that was it but the centigrim just shook its head like it someone bounced a book off its head, it centred its head a stared at the girls with its large mandibles pinched twice and charged forward. Salem sighed "well that didn't work I'm going try a different approach you keep hitting it with fire" before cinder had a chance to respond Salem ran forward and with her semblance launched herself over the grim and onto its back. "What the?" cinder was completely thrown off by Salem's sudden attack but shrugged and prepared another fire ball. Salem snapped her weapon back to its normal form and slashed its back bit it only bounced off its armour "Hmm maybe I'll go for the head"

"look out behind you" Salem hadn't noticed that the grim had reared its back to stab Salem with its back stingers just as was about to make contact a ball of fire collided with it knocking the blow away and Salem jumped off. "What the hell was that Salem?!" cinder shouted "improvising!" Salem shouted back. The centigrim spun its back half towards Salem but she jumped over it and rolled on the other side "well this isn't working"

Salem thought to herself then an idea popped into her head she concentrated for a second activated her semblance and raised a hand towards the middle of the grim and lifted her arm which caused the grim to arch a small amount enough for Salem to slice its underbelly which made it bleed. The grim screamed in a high pitch screech and started to writhe unpredictably and it slammed its body into Salem causing her to fly towards the treeline just before she should have landed a bubble of energy surrounded her and she bounced of a tree and onto the ground relatively unscathed.

Salem looked up to find Neo staring at her with a puzzled look "big ass bug" Salem pointed in the direction from which she came from. Emerald walked over and lent a hand "you ok?" "yeah I'm just peachy" and she took emeralds hand and dragged herself up. Once Salem was at her feet emerald tilted her head "so what's this about a bug" just as she was about to answer cinder came running towards them screaming followed by an extremely angry centipede, Salem pointed "that" emerald starred at the creature "oh, I see" emerald went a bit pale at the sight of the monstrosity that was barrelling towards them "move now" Salem directed and emerald and neo jumped to either side of its path "cinder think you can lure it back to the clearing" cinder shouted back "really? well I'm going to need some backup then".

"alright you got it" Salem turned to neo "could you put a few shots into it to throw it off, it doesn't matter where you it" neo nodded and aimed at its leg and fired one shot hit in between one of its kneecaps the leg came off completely. The grim hissed at Neo and just as it was about to charge towards her a fireball hit it in the side redirecting the centigrim back to cinders path which she had turned back towards the clearing and it went after her again.

Salem turned to neo "great shot stay within the treeline and give us fire support" neo smiled and nodded "emerald you're with me" emerald grinned "what did you have in mind" Salem turned to emerald with a similar grin "we're going to take its head" As Salem and emerald were running together Salem spoke "so I know it's a bit rude to ask but what's your semblance, it's just so I know what to coordinate with" emerald smiles "I don't mind my semblance is called blink I can teleport short distances in rapid succession"

Salem's eyes widened "that's amazing, that'll be crucial ok can you run interference then just blink around it until you see any openings and exploit it". Emerald grinned "it's like you knew what I was going to do anyway" Salem nodded "great let's get to work but watch for that tail its lethal". Emerald turned to neo "switch to AP shot" neo nodded and swapped her magazine with another marked 'AP'. "we're all set Salem" Salem gave a thumbs up "ok break" and Salem and emerald split either side of the charging grim.

Salem reached out her and with her semblance grabbed the edge of the tail and slowed the grim down enough for cinder to catch a break. The centigrim turned to see what was obstructing its movement and it clocked eyes with Salem and she gave it a grin. It stopped moving and turned to Salem for a moment there was nothing then the sound of Neo's sniper filed the air 'crack', 'crack', 'crack' three shots fired and shattered the front armour plates on its face exposing its flesh, the grim reared back at the sudden shots.

Emerald saw her opportunity and blinked towards it first, she slashed its exposed head then blinked her way down its body stabbing and prodding any weakness she could find. Salem ran headfirst and engaged it head on dodging and slashing the incoming attacks of its pincers. As emerald made her way to the end of the grim, she spotted cinder catching her breath "you want to give us a hand here cinder" cinder looked up to see emerald vanishing and reappearing all over the place disorientating cinder.

"yeah sure next time your running from the bug" she took out her whip and pressed the button on the side blades extended all down the whip and using her semblance she coated her weapon in fire to make a fiery serrated whip. With a few fluid twirls the whip danced around cinder like water, she whipped it towards the grim curling around its tail the grim could only shriek in in pain from the flames, the tail flailing wildly then she pulled the whip causing all the blades to tear through its armour and into the flesh, then with a turn of the handle severed the stinger from its body and the flames casing the wound to cauterize.

This sudden loss of its stinger and the excruciating pain the grim curled and flailed and screeched everyone took a step back as it was surprisingly more dangerous like this in a blind rage it actually lunged for Salem which caught her and everyone off guard. Salem caught her weapon in its mouth as it tried to bite her, it was immensely strong seconds more of this and Salem would collapse but then out of nowhere a sheath came out of the forest and struck the grim on its fleshy head and the force knocked it back away from Salem. "That's why you should always stay alert, have I taught you nothing".

Salem got up and turned to a familiar voice as Adam appeared from the forest "Adam what are you doing I had that" Adam smiles "I'm sure, was that before or after you were going to be impaled" Adam turned his head towards the trees "Melanie, Miltia get the legs and Roman blast its head" Two girls bursts from the trees at high speed splitting up and in a fluid motion of kicks, claws and speed they made their way effortlessly down its body and stopped at the stump of its tail they both turned to face Adam and spoke together "you're not the leader yet Adam quit acting like it"

Adam rubbed the back of its head "alright that's fair my bad, Roman you're ready" the stylish redheaded boy with the black trilby emerged "sure thing boss" raising his cane towards the grim he pressed a button and blast of energy smashed it face causing the centipede to rear up "now's our chance Salem I'll let you have the honours since this was your fight" Salem nodded they both ran together as it tried to move with its destroyed legs, still reeling from the explosion Adam got underneath its head and wedged his sword between the bottom of its neck and the ground and Salem jumped in the air an came down with a spin slash and its head separated from its body. It wriggled around for a moment and eventually stopping and reduced itself to ash.

With the centigrim dead the four girls joined together at the podiums and picked up their relics a few minutes later some other students emerged battle worn and exhausted but at last the trial was over.

 **And there you have it the conclusion of the emerald forest I hope you enjoyed reading it, sorry if it's a bit dragged out, I'll try to improve in the future, see you in the next chapter.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello fellow readers to chapter 4 I hope you enjoy reading it thank you**

 **Chapter 6 team S.C.E.N**

"Adam Taurus, Miltia Malachite, Melanie Malachite and Roman Torchwick you four retrieved the four white rooks from today you will be known as team AMMR lead by Adam Taurus, congratulations young man" Adam shook Ozpin hand "thank you professor" and turned to his new team "now I _am_ the leader hah" both Melanie and Miltia both turned there heads away while roman did a slow clap as Adam approached.

Ozpin looked at the girls "Salem Velaros, Cinder Fall, Emerald Sustrai and Neo Politan you four picked up the four black knight pieces and from today you are team SCEN led by Salem Velaros" Salem was suddenly startled by the sudden announcement and froze for a moment; then she felt a slap on her back pushing her forward Salem turned to see Emerald pushing her with a grin on her face.

"go on _team leader_ " emerald smirked, Salem walked forward and approached the professor "are you sure about this professor" Ozpin put one hand on her shoulder and gave a small smile "I'm sure you will do your team proud young lady"; Salem felt a wave of nervousness flash over her as she returned to _her_ new team.

"well guys looks like we're stuck together now" Salem said nervously all the girls smiled "I'm sure you'll lead us well Salem" cinder said with a smile, Neo nodded and held her scroll up "I'm sure you'll do great boss" and gave Salem a warm closed eyed smile; Emerald put hand on her shoulder with a grin "so what's our first job o leader of ours" Salem looked at them and smiled back "food, I'm starving" everyone laughed and headed off the stage towards the cafeteria.

 _Later that evening_

All the girl were sleeping in their room, Salem couldn't get the events of the day out of her head, the grim that spoke to her, she remembered its words as clear as if it just spoke "I… remember… you" those words broke Salem from her sleep and she shot up from her bed in a cold sweat and heavy breathing.

Salem took a moment to collect herself, luckily it seemed like she didn't wake any of the other girls up. She decided to check her watch; the time read 12:30am. "maybe some fresh air will do me some good" she thought to herself. So, she got up as quietly as she could, put on her tracksuit pants and black t-shirt and left.

There was an eeriness to beacon after dark, as she walked through the corridor, she noticed a door that looked like it led outside, but she was on the second floor. She approached the door to discover it was a balcony and standing over it was professor Ozpin sipping his coffee while staring at the shattered moon.

Salem approached him, "do you know why the moon shattered" said the professor not turning around; Salem stood beside him and looked at the moon and before she had a chance to answer he spoke again "neither do I, there are many theories and stories surrounding it but it's always remained a mystery; someday I'd like to know the truth.

The professor turned to Salem "so why are you wandering the halls so late at night miss velaros" Salem looked at the ground "sir have you ever heard a grim talk before" Ozpin raised an eyebrow "no I can't say I have personally as far as I'm aware, grim lack the necessary vocal cords that allow speech" Salem words burst out of her "then why did one speak to me!" there was a mix of anger and desperation in her tone. Ozpin tuned to Salem fully "come to my office we'll talk more" Salem nodded and followed the professor.

They arrived at Ozpin's office and he sat down at his desk "please continue" he gestured a hand to a chair opposite him. Salem walked over and sat down "ok I had just landed from the launch pad and as I hit the forest floor I heard several grim stalking my position; I readied myself for a fight when four beowolfs came out of the trees, I quickly dispatched two of them but then…" Salem paused.

"just like the night my parents were taken; one of the beowolf's eyes went silver and it spoke to me" for the first time since she had met Ozpin, he changed his expression from calm to concern "and what did this grim say if I may ask".

Salem hesitated "it said… it said that it remembered me, it even named me and what's worse it joked about my parent's abduction" there was an unsettling anger in Ozpins eyes, but he remained his somewhat calm demeanour. "was there anything else it said", Salem shook her head "no after that cinder arrived and took care of the two beowolfs, i don't think she heard it though".

Salem fidgeted with her fingers "sir do you know anything about this silver eyed entity that's keeps plaguing my life". Ozpin took a moment to process what he had just heard "I see that was quite the ordeal, to put it bluntly we don't actually know a lot about the silver eyes, all that we do know is; for as long as grim have been around rumours of silver eyes have been around; along with a figure we don't know who are what it is only that its come to be known as _'the red reaper'_.

The name sent a icy chill done Salem's spine "and what do you think this silver eyes or red reaper wants with me" Ozpin shook his head "honestly I have no idea but I would be extra cautious from here on out, come to me if anything similar happens in the future" Salem nodded "good well you should get some rest classes start tomorrow. "alright professor goodnight" Salem bowed and went back to her room.

 _The next morning_

'beep' 'beep' beep' the sound of an alarm clock resonated around the room followed by several groans as the four girls awoke from there slumber each doing various stretches and yawns; emerald rubbed her eyes "morning team" she stretched "what time is it "cinder checked her watch "seven thirty, classes start at nine" emerald let out a huge sigh "this is going to be every day isn't it" cinder chuckled "I'm afraid so".

Neo was next to sit up she waved at the girls while rubbing her eyes with the other hand and the girls smiled and waved back. Salem was the last to wake; she sat up but the look on her face looked like she hadn't slept a wink (she hadn't) emerald noticed first "wow Salem you look you had a wild night" Salem waved off the comment "I'm fine I'm just a poor sleeper, anyway good morning team lets do our best today"

"first things first we need a good breakfast, what do you guys think" everyone nodded in unison and headed off to the cafeteria.

After breakfast the team headed for their first period with professor port for grim studies. "so what do you think we will learn in this class" Salem says as they walked in and found a seat "ah a good question miss" a voice boomed from behind them and everyone turned at the same time to see a short round man with a big grey moustache, grey eyebrows and grey hair.

The professor moved his way to the front of the class "my name is professor Port and from today I will be teaching you how to prepare yourself against the menace that is the grim so get out your notebooks as I tell you how to survive based off my experiences as a huntsmen.

The whole class let out a choir of sighs as the professor began telling the class the time, he beat a beowolf with his bare hands. The story was obviously exaggerated at least that's what Salem thought as she already fought beowolfs and she knew just how much physically stronger they were to humans, so this had to be made up right?

"you miss Velaros" Salem's eyes snapped to the professors who was staring at her "I'm sorry what was that sir?" the professor sighed "pay attention, now can you tell me where the grim come from?" Salem shook her head "no sir I'm not sure but they must come from somewhere".

Port nodded "not a bad answer your right though they do come from somewhere, but no one knows where our how they come to be, so make sure you learn all you can in my class as it could be the difference between life and death" just as he finished the bell rang "well that's it for this class I look forward to seeing you all next time".

"man that was dull I thought I was going to fall into a coma" emerald said as they walked through the halls "I'm sure there is something we can learn from professor Port" cinder spoke up, emerald turned to cinder "like what 'how to talk a wooden horse to sleep?'" Cinder shot back "I mean you don't get to the professors age as a huntsmen if you aren't skilled" Emerald huffed and looked away "you have a point, but does he have to talk about himself."

Neo tapped Emerald on the shoulder with her scroll up "cinder is right give the professor a chance" giving Emerald a smile "fiiine you win" as she sighed in defeat. Cinder turned to Salem "are you okay, you seemed kind of out of it in there" Salem looked at Cinder "yeah I'm fine I'm just kind of zoned out today" before cinder could respond Emerald jumped in "well you better zone back in because its battle practice with Professor Goodwitch next" Salem nodded "don't worry I'm ready to blow some steam off".

"good I wouldn't mind going a round with you myself" emerald grinned "we'll have to see about that emerald" and Salem grinned back, then they made their way to the practice room.

When they arrived, they saw a large cylindrical room circle arena in the middle with stands encompassing the out edge of the arena and there stood professor Goodwitch in the middle with her stern-as-always look

"hello students and welcome to your practice class, in here you will learn to better hone your own individual skills by sparring with your fellow classmates" the professor paused and shifted her glasses up her nose and looked at the students.

"let me be clear this is purely meant for training purposes only if I see students going too far or purposefully trying to injure there classmate will be severely punished am I clear" the whole class silently nodded "good now for our first pair it shall be Adam Taurus and Salem Velaros you two move to the centre, everyone else go the stands watch and learn.

Salem paused when she heard her name especially since she would be up against Adam who she hadn't sparred with since signal. Her train of thought was broken when she heard Adam speak "come on Salem lets see how much you have improved since signal" as he twirled his sword in his sheath; suddenly a wave of competitiveness washed over Salem and she ginned at Adam "very well Adam let's do this" and she made her way to her side of the arena.

Professor moved to the centre of the two "let me explain the rules you will notice on the boards above you these will show how much aura you have; green means your fine, yellow means you should rethink your strategy and red will means your aura will be depleted leaving you vulnerable; the match will be called when the first persons aura reaches the red; is that understood".

Both shouted "yes" at the same time; the professor then walked out of the arena and stood at the edge "very well you may begin in 5" Salem readied herself twirling her twinblade slowly "4" Adam took a stance one hand hovering over his sheath one foot forward and foot back "3" they both lowered themselves "2" both stopped breathing, watching each-others subtle movements "1"

In a burst of uncanny speed both clashed in the middle, sparks flew as they made contact Salem had landed her attack first before Adam could unsheathe so he blocked the downward swing with the flat of his sword. They stood there for a moment grunting and pushing against one another's weapon trying to out muscle the other, but Adam was physically stronger as he pushed harder Salem was forced to lower giving Adam enough room to sweep kick Salem tripping her up.

Adam took the second to unsheathe his sword and make a slash at Salem's neck but she rolled backwards and onto her feet and in the fraction of a second that it took to come out of the roll Adam was in Salem's face going for a low slash; Salem held her weapon close to her chest blocking the hit and pushing her back. They both took a second to breath.

"Not bad Salem you have improved since signal" Adam breaking the silence; Salem grinned "you've seen nothing yet" Salem twisted he weapon and hit split into two Adam grinned back "lets see what you can do" and they both clashed again Salem only blocking with one hand this time.

Salem let Adam's strength push her down, as she got down on one knee she grinned and with a lightning fast upper slash with the other half past Adam's guard and slashed his upper torso.

The slash caused his aura meter to dip just above yellow; Adam jumped back this though time it was Salem in his face but before she could slash; Adam pointed his sheath at Salem's stomach and fired a shotgun blast at point blank causing her to fly to the other end of the room and land on the floor.

Salem picked herself up and cracked her neck, her expression changed to anger. Slowly her blades began to levitate and reattach itself Adam stood there waiting like a patient instructor as Salem approached her weapon started spinning faster and faster until it was just a blur of grey and with one finger pointed at Adam the blade flew over.

Adam blocked the initial attack but the rapid succession of highspeed blocks would have been tiring for anyone, so Adam waited for the moment of hesitation. Then it happened a slight wobble in the attack was enough to slip past the whirling dervish and straight for Salem. But just before he could strike, he froze and noticed Salem had one hand pointed at him; he smiled "well played" Salem never responded only clenched a fist and it began to glow.

Salem launched an aura filled punch right into Adam's gut which caused him to arch but she held him there preparing to charge another one this time though Adam fought with every ounce of strength he had and raised his sword just enough to block the punch, then Adam began to glow red.

This surprising burst of energy broke Salem's hold of him and before she could react, Adam slashed his sword towards Salem and a destructive wave of energy collided with her causing her to fly into a pillar and she collapsed onto the ground.

"and that's the match" the Professor said as Salem stood up clutching her side and walked to the centre noticing her aura was almost entirely depleted on her screen while Adam's hovered just over red "the winner is Adam Taurus but nevertheless that was a good match, I hope all of you students learned something, we'll take a ten minute break and we'll reconvene" Professor Goodwitch turned to Salem that was an excellent match, keep training and you'll make a great huntress someday" Salem gave the professor a tiered smile.

Adam approached Salem and stuck his hand out "that was a damn good match Salem I can't believe how much you have improved since signal, that took everything I had to beat you; ill have to be careful or you'll be teaching me to fight".

Salem turned to Adam, shook his hand and smiled "well I had an excellent teacher but was that last attack necessary" Adam raised an eyebrow "you're one to talk stringing me up and belting me like I was a sand bag" they both looked at each other with stern expressions then they both broke down and started laughing .

After the laughter had subsided Adam spoke "no but in all seriousness you really have gotten stronger. Salem blushed a little "thank you Adam I had a great match" and gave Adam a bow.

Salem returned to the stands to join her team; cinder rushed up to her "that was amazing Salem I knew you were strong but that was insane" Salem chuckled nervously as she rubbed her head "thanks cin but I still lost I still have a lot to learn".

Cinder smiled back "that's what you've got us for, isn't that right team" ;Neo nodded with a smile and emerald gave a thumbs up "damn straight" Salem smiled back at her team "thank you guys" and she sat down and rested while the other students sparred.

After several practice matches; the bell rang for end of class and the beginning of lunch. The professor turned to the class "that's it for today; for thoes who sparred today well done, and for those who did not I hope you took notes as you may be paired with against these students in the future and knowing is half the battle; remember that".

As they left emerald was agitated "I really wanted to let loose in there I'm certain the professor dislikes me" Cinder turned to emerald "I'm sure that's not the case, I mean none of the rest of us got to spar today and there is always tomorrow" emerald sighed "I suppose" Salem spoke up "hey emerald I don't mind if we have a few rounds at the gym later" emerald's face lit up and she grinned "your on boss"

"so, what's our next class after" Salem asked as they ate "semblance training" cinder spoke up; Salem turned to cinder "who is the professor" Cinder shrugged "I don't know it doesn't say; which is strange in my opinion" Salem looked puzzled "hmm maybe it was a last minute change and they haven't updated it to our scrolls" cinder shrugged "maybe I suppose we'll find out when we get there"

The students arrived at a large rectangular room with all sorts of equipment, from practice dummies, hoops dangling from the ceiling and various other objects neatly scattered around the room. However, there was one thing missing; where was the professor?

A moment passed then the sound of heels clacking against the stone floor behind them, the students turned to see a woman approaching, she had he most piercing blue eyes, her snow white hair and porcelain white skin the students had ever seen, she wore a white skirt that went to the knees and a white long-sleeved shirt.

She stopped at the students "hello students and welcome to semblance training, I am professor Wiess Schnee and im very eager to see what you can do" and she gave the students a smile "in this class I'll assess your semblance and make individual training schedules to help hone your individual talents, now who would like to demonstrate their semblance to me" and a small grin appeared in her face but Salem noticed and it gave her a chill that she didn't understand.

Emerald raised her hand the professor nodded "very well what's your semblance?" Emerald responded "my semblance is blink professor I can teleport short distances" Weiss nodded "very well whenever you're ready"

Emerald lowered herself and then vanished and a second later she reappeared behind the professor "interesting, that's quite the ability" the professor said not turning around "but its predictable" and where emerald was stood a white circle appeared at her feet and suddenly, she froze "what the?"

Emerald said genuinely confused as to what happened; the professor turned to emerald "and that is your first lesson" the circle disappeared.

emerald looked up in anger then blinked; the professor raised an eyebrow and placed another glyph on the ground, but emerald reappeared in the same placed and punched the professor in the face knocking her back a bit "lesson received" emerald spoke with an angry grin.

Wiess paused then wiped a small red line off her face and smiled "you're a quick study" she then turned to the class "emerald re-join your class; now then I'll go by everyone and we'll discuss your semblances".

Emerald returned to her team and Neo approached with a concerned look on her face with her scroll up "are you ok Emerald?".

Emerald put a hand on Neo's head and gave her a smile "I'm fine Neo I just lost my temper" Neo smiled and typed on her scroll "that was a pretty good shot btw" emerald let out a little laugh "you know it"

One by one the professor went by the students in a line and asked them about their semblances eventually coming to the four girls "and you?" as she pointed at cinder "my semblance is fire professor" Wiess looked at cinder with intrigue "hmm interesting would you show me" cinder stretched her hand out flat and a small flame appeared from the centre of her hand.

Wiess studied the flame for a moment "very good; and what about you?" as she moved on to Neo who held up her scroll "my semblance is barrier I can make a ball of protection around me or others" the professor smiled "that's a lovely semblance would you show me?"

Neo nodded and put her arms out and a ball of energy surrounded herself" Wiess looked at it and knocking on it a few times "that's a very nice semblance indeed, make sure to keep your friends safe" Neo smiled at the professor and nodded.

Lastly the professor came to Salem "and last but not least what about you?" Salem responded "my semblance is telekinesis professor" there was a sudden spark of excitement in the professor's eyes "really that's interesting would you demonstrate please"

Salem was kind of put off by the sudden plea "sure" and with her hand pointed at the professors scroll she flicked her hand up and it started to float above her hand before coming down to rest " _its you_?" Weiss whispered under her breath; Salem barely catching anything "what was that professor?" the professor shook her head "it's nothing I was just noting your semblance; alright students I'm finishing class early so I can make your training schedules for next time class dismissed".

"well professor Schnee is interesting" Salem commented as the girls wandered the halls "she's a bitch" Emerald jumped in; everyone snapped to emerald in response, but she only smiled "but she knows it, I think I'm going to like her".

 _Back in the classroom_

"I can't believe I'd run into her so soon I need to be smart about this, first I must report this; she's going to be so impressed with me" Weiss happily thought to herself and began going over her new students semblances "this year has a great selection" and she started writing down the training schedules.

 _Later that evening_

The girls were relaxing in their room waiting for sleep to eventually find them "well that was an exhausting day and its just the first day" Salem broke the silence. Emerald spoke up "well you're the only one of us that actually did anything exhausting"

Salem nodded in response "I suppose but I mean you did slug that professor, so at least your day wasn't completely boring" Emerald chuckled "haha you got a point Salem, it did feel good though" everyone laughed a little "well goodnight team" as Salem was about to fall asleep she saw Cinder stretching and noticed a small white line across the top of her wrist before hiding back into her sleeve.

Salem was too tired at this point to ask about it, so she turned on her back and slowly her eyes got heavier and heavier until she found unconsciousness.

 **And that's the end of chapter 4 I hope you all enjoyed reading it, I apologize if it isn't great It's my first time writing a slice of life chapter. In any case thank you for reading it and I'll see you in the next chapter.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hello readers and welcome back to the next chapter, first thing I want to say is thank you for reading I've currently reached over a thousand views and I just wanted to thank you all for taking the time to read it, now without further ado here is the next chapter I hope you all enjoy it.**

 **Chapter 7 the mute and the urchin**

The next day arrived at beacon followed by the sound of a familiar alarm clock and the team aroused from there sleep, said there good mornings and got themselves organised for the day ahead, Emerald stretched before speaking "so who's hungry because I am", Neo poked Emerald in the side with her scroll out, Emerald turned her head to read it while Neo silently chuckled "you never change".

Emerald grinned "what can I say a girls gotta eat" they both laughed at each other, while Salem and Cinder quietly observed their interaction then looked at each other a chuckled. Emerald turned her head to peanut gallery "something funny you two?" they both shook their heads together Salem spoke first "it's nothing Emerald, I just think they way you two interact is adorable". Cinder nodded.

Both Emerald and Neo went red then turned their heads in opposite directions "I don't know what you your talking about but I mean…" and she turned her head back towards Salem and Cinder and grinned "but our relationship has nothing on you two" and suddenly it was Salem and Cinder who were flustered Salem spoke up in defence "we don't have _any_ type of relationship, we're just teammates, right Cinder? Cinder nodded "y-yeah Salem is right"

Emerald grinned "you stuttered Cinder", Cinder started shaking her head furiously "that's not true, anyway let's go get some breakfast, shall we?" Emerald held her hands up and shrugged "whatever let's get going then" and with that everyone left for the cafeteria.

Once they arrived it didn't take them look to locate the trays of food, it consisted of scrambled eggs, sausages, beans with a carton of orange juice and a slice of cake. They each took a tray and sat down on the table and began to eat. There was a good couple of minutes of solid eating before anyone spoke again, Emerald stopped "so what do we have first today?" Cinder tried to answer with a mouthful of food "i… thnk… it… hitory" Emerald gave a puzzled stare at Cinder "what was that" Cinder swallowed and coughed "I said I think its history with Dr Oobleck".

Emerald rested her head onto the table with a sigh "really, history I think id rather go back to bed", Neo nudged Emerald's foot and she turned her head on the table in the direction of Neo, Who looked displeased with her scroll held up "come on Emerald show some respect for the academy" Emerald sighed again "but history is sooo dull"? Neo started furiously typing "no buts! Just pay attention and maybe you will learn something" Emerald lifted her head "I just can't win with you, can I?" Neo silently chuckled. Salem decided to jump in "hey Emerald I was wondering; how do you and Neo know each other?"

Emerald pondered Salem's question for a moment "hmm it's a long story but here's the gist of it; I tried to mug Neo" Salem turned to Neo confused "really?" Neo just nodded; Emerald continued "you see one day when I was on the street, I noticed Neo walking alone".

(flash back noises) _**4 years ago**_

Emerald was walking the streets like she always did looking for the next chump to pickpocket, then her mark presented itself in the form of a young girl, that looked to be roughly the same age as Emerald but what first drew her to the girl was her split hair colour, half brown, half pink which Emerald found odd but really caught her attention was her outfit. she wore a black, sleeveless top with four white frills that went over her chest and up to her collar, she also wore a black skirt that went to her knees with white inlay, with a black satchel over her shoulder. Emerald grinned looking at the satchel "target acquired"

Emerald decided to keep a good distance behind her as to not arouse suspicion, that and if she needed to, she could blink to the girl but only once as that was her current limit with her semblance. She maintained her distance for some time before the girl turned into an ally. Emerald sped up then hugged the wall as she approached and looked down the ally.

When she looked down, she spotted the girl but what's more she spotted two grown up men cutting her off. "give us the satchel girl and you don't get hurt" said one of them men. The girl took a step back clutching her satchel while scowling at the men but never saying a word. One of the men was starting to get annoyed with the girl "tch are you deaf, I said hand over that bag now!" and shoved her against a wall, the sudden force of being slammed into a wall caused the girl to wince with pain but she maintained her grip on her satchel and gave the man a defiant stare. Which only caused the man to get even angrier "alright you asked for it you little shit!" the man curled his fist and slammed it into the girls stomach causing her to arch forward, eyes wide but what was odd was the inaudible gasp that came from the girl's mouth and she dropped the satchel.

Just then something snapped in Emerald, and before she could think she blinked up to the man's head and planted her knee into his temple which resulted in the man being knocked away then fell unconscious. The other man looked at the new girl in confusion but what surprised him the most was the fire and rage in the girl's eyes "w-what? who are you kid?" Emerald didn't answer right away, she grabbed a nearby pipe and stood in front of the girl who was on her knees clutching her stomach "take your buddy and go and you wont have to find out".

The man's pride wouldn't let him be talked that way by a child "you should have respect for your elders' kid!" he said as he threw a punch towards Emerald who just side stepped and jammed the pipe into the man's stomach, the man took a step back and went on one knee, now he was holding his stomach. Emerald approached the man, as he looked up to meet Emerald's gaze she spoke "you haven't earned my respect" and with a quick crack to the man's head he fell unconscious. Once the man had fallen, she turned around to the girl and approached her who was just getting to her feet still holding her stomach "hey are you alright kid".

The girl nodded at Emerald which annoyed her "what no 'thanks for saving me'", the girl grasped Emeralds hand with both of hers and bowed her head Emerald gave her a small smile "I suppose that will do, your safe now" just as she said that the girl wrapped her hands around Emerald and gave her a hug and Emerald froze. For a moment they stood there, then Emerald felt something wet on her shoulder where the girl had buried her head, then she realised she was crying so she put one hand on the back of her head and started stroking her hair "its alright now, but lets get out of here, I'm not sure I could go round two with these guys"

The girl pulled away to reveal the tears in her eyes and to Emeralds surprise they were different colours one was brown and they other one was light blue; the girl nodded, and they walked out of the ally and onto the street.

They walked in silence for a few minutes before coming to a park; Emerald gestured to a nearby bench, the girl nodded and they both sat down. A moment later Emerald started getting impatient "so why did you dive in that ally" the girl started rummaging through her satchel and she pulled out a tablet and started typing. This caused Emerald to get annoyed "hey I'm talking to you, its rude to ignore someone you know" the girl showed Emerald her tablet "I'm sorry but I'm unable to speak, my name is Neo and I'm forever in your debt" Emerald was taken aback by the sudden revelation "im sorry I didn't know, but still why did you go in that ally"

Neo started to fidget with her legs before typing "well you see I sort of noticed you were following me, and I got nervous, so I went into that ally where I…" she stopped typing and tears started falling from her face. A wave of guilt hit Emerald like _she_ got punched in the stomach. For some reasons she didn't understand she couldn't stand watching this girl cry, she put a hand on her shoulder "it's alright you don't need to cry" Emerald paused and sighed "to tell you the truth, the reason I was following you was to mug you myself"

Neo was suddenly startled by Emeralds confession and a look of concern was plastered on her face, then she started typing "why?" Emerald looked away in shame "I needed the money for food, I haven't eaten in days and you looked like an easy target" Emerald started to sob with guilt. Neo wasn't expecting that answer, nor was she expected her apparent mugger to start crying in front of her. She started to type "why haven't you eaten; don't you have a family? Or a home?" Emerald turned to the tablet to read it "no I don't Neo, I've been on my own for as long as I can remember"

Neo felt sad for Emerald, she almost felt bad she hadn't mugged her, but she shook her head and typed again "that's awful I'm sorry" and she moved closer to Emerald and cupped Emerald's hand; suddenly a spark of genius came over Neo she started typing furiously before tapping Emerald on the shoulder.

Emerald turned to Neo "what?" then she read the tablet "why don't you come live with me?" Emerald shot up from the bench and took two steps forward and turned around with a genuinely shocked expression and red cheeks "what do you mean live with you, I barely know you and more importantly I tried to rob you" Neo kept a smile and shrugged her shoulders then stood up from the bench, she walked up to Emerald while typing "I suppose but you didn't" she took her free hand and held Emeralds while she showed her the rest of the message which made Emerald begin to tear up "you saved me, now its my turn to save you"

Emerald was stunned by this series of events, she never thought mugging someone would result in something like this "I can't just arrive at your doorstep, what about your parents? Wont they have something to say about you bringing a stranger to their house? And what's more telling them that I'm moving in"

Neo didn't hesitate to reply "no, probably not, they've always talked about expanding the family and I've… always wanted an older sister, one that will protect me when times are tough" she closed her eyes and smiled at Emerald.

Emerald couldn't believe what she was reading, it was all she ever wanted, something that couldn't be bought or stolen, something she had been looking for her whole life. Family. She was about to burst out crying but she composed herself "I… can't… Neo I don't deserve something like that but thank you". Neo frowned, shook her head and typed "look your coming home with me like it or not, I wont have you sleeping in the streets, I'd never forgive myself, at least spend the night, get some food and decide what you want to do tomorrow"

Emerald sighed in defeat "alright you win", Neo started jumping with joy before grabbing Emerald's hand and started dragging her off with her tablet in Emerald's face "so do you have a name?" Emerald offered a light chuckle "my name is Emerald" Neo smiled and moved up to Emerald's ear and her eyes went wide.

"p… r… e… t… t… y…"

It was almost impossible to hear but it hit Emerald like a train which caused her last wall collapsed and she immediately hugged Neo while balling her eyes out. After a couple of moments Neo broke off and spat on the ground, Emerald turned to see what she spat, to Emeralds shock, it was blood. Emerald was confused "are you alright" Neo was still smiling as she wiped her mouth, then went to her tablet "yeah I'm fine, anyway enough about me lets go home shall we. Emerald nodded "take me home Neo" and the two walked off in the direction of Neo's home.

After about half an hour of walking they arrived at a pretty normal one-story house, the sun was beginning to set in distance. Neo let herself and a voice of a man travelled through the house "Neo is that you?" Neo tapped her foot twice on the wooden floor and the sound of two sets of footsteps came into view as a middle-aged man with brown hair, brown thick moustache and brown eyes, he wore a light grey flannel shirt and denim jeans. Along side him was a woman with pink hair that draped passed her shoulders and a light blue sundress.

They both approached Neo and gave her a hug the father spoke first "I'm so glad you're alright we were getting worried when you didn't text me at your usual time. Neo shook her head and typed on her tablet "I'm fine dad really" as the family was having their embrace the mother looked up to see Emerald standing at the door "who is this? Is she a new friend of yours? She spoke with a soft voice.

Neo nodded and replied to her mother "yes she is, she saved me today" her mother looked at her puzzled "what d…" before she could question Neo broke away from the hug and took off her shirt to reveal a large purple bruise on her stomach; both parents gasped with horror, her mother started crying and grabbed Neo to inspect the bruise "what happened to you?!". The father was blindingly angry seeing Neo's bruise, he turned his gaze to Emerald "what happened to her!" Emerald stuttered before Neo broke from mother's grip and stood in front of Neo with her arms stretched put as if she was protecting her this time.

Neo started typing furiously and gave it to her dad "dad it wasn't her fault!, I was walking down the street and as I was heading back two adults tried to rob me and when I refused one of them hit me, but then out of nowhere Emerald came to my rescue, if it hadn't been for her I'd still be there" he read as Neo put her shirt back on. Neo's father's expression changed from angry to relief and actually moved Neo gently away and walked up to Emerald and gave her a big hug as he began to sob "thank you, thank you for saving my little girl". Emerald had never experienced a proper strong hug from anyone before, in that moment she was paralyzed, unable to move a single muscle.

The man broke away which gave Emerald room to speak "it's no problem I only wish I had intervened sooner then your daughter might of not been hurt" the man shook his head "dwelling on it wont help but even still thank you so much for getting Neo out" the mother spoke up still sobbing "really though thank you so much, is there anything we can do to say thanks". Just then Neo popped up and started typing, then she showed her parents "Emerald here is homeless and has nowhere to go, can she live here? I told her she could at least spend the night". Both of the parents were stunned to read that she was a homeless child.

They both thought for a moment, looked at each other and smiled, the mother spoke first in her soft tone again "but of course she can stay, we have a spare bedroom". Emerald suddenly backed up a step and started waving her hands while shaking her head "you really don't have to, and I wouldn't want to intrude". The father walked up to Emerald and out a hand on her shoulder "nonsense your staying with us, besides you've already qualified to be a big sister, so come on in, get warm, get some food, and some sleep ok?"

Emerald couldn't believe what she was hearing, a moment ago this man was roaring at her now he's offering her a place to live "i… c…" before Emerald could say another letter Neo came up to her, cupped Emerald's hand with both hands and looked into her eyes, they looked desperate but the look said "please".

Emerald let out a sigh then a small smile "I really can't say no to you" Neo's face lit up with joy and started guiding Emerald into the house.

As soon as Emerald crossed the threshold a sudden warmth hit her, tears started falling subconsciously, it was a warmth she almost thought she remembered.

It was the warmth of a family.

(flashback ending noises) _**present day**_

"and that's how I kicked an ursa in the face" Emerald boasted while both Salem and Cinder looked at each other in confusion while Neo was hiding behind her hands in embarrassment. Salem raised a hand with one eyebrow raised Emerald noticed, "yes Salem? Salem put her hand down "so you were going to rob Neo when a giant ursa attacked her and you kicked it in the head? Emerald nodded "exactly".

Neither of them bought it for a second "alright then good story Emerald I cant wait to know how this ends" Salem said while chuckling a little, Cinder jumped in "oh but look at the time Salem we've got class now", Salem let out an exaggerated gasp "oh damn that's a shame next time then Emerald".

Emerald puffed her cheeks "very funny guys, well anyway, let's get history out of the way, because it is sparring again after it, and I really want to cut loose". Neo nodded in agreement with a determined look on her face. With that everyone got up from their table and went to class.

 _ **Two hours later**_

The girls left their history and were in the hallway. Emerald let out a huge sigh of relief "I pretty sure Dr Oobleck ran a marathon in there" Salem jumped in "for what moving or speaking" Salem's response made everyone laugh as they made their way to sparring class.

When they arrived the professor was standing in the middle of the room like she did yesterday "good morning class today we'll be continuing from yesterday but those who participated yesterday will not be sparring today so I advise you watch and learn, now everyone to the stands and wait to be called".

So, the class filed in and took their places in the stand in order of teams.

The sound of the random generator made the class wait with anticipation 'bling', 'bling', 'bling'. 'blink' it came to a stop to reveal the two names "Emerald Sustrai and Neo Politan come to the middle. An eerie silence filled the room as the two girls looked at each other but surprisingly both of them gave each other a determined grin "show me what you've got girl" Emerald taunted, Neo typed on her scroll "bring it sister". The two made their way to the centre where professor Goodwitch was standing "do you need me to go over the rules again" both shook their heads "good now go to either side and wait for the buzzer" so they moved to the edge of the arena.

Once Neo made her way there, she pressed a button on her rifle which caused the stock to fall off, followed by the scope and barrel, it now had the appearance of a revolver. She picked up the barrel and wielded it like a baton.

Emerald attached two medium sized blades which were about fifteen centimetres. she slotted them into her gauntlets, she extended the blades then retracted it to test the gears. Both girls were ready.

The professor began the countdown "5, 4, 3, 2, 1 begin".

As soon as the professor ended the countdown, Neo fired three quick shots towards Emerald, but she ran forwards and dodged to the side, anticipating this she fired another three shots in the place Emerald dodged tp. Emerald blinked to avoid the second volley then appeared behind Neo "gotcha" she said with a grin.

She was about to slash Neo but was met by Neo's barrier, which caused the weapon to bounce off, Neo used the microsecond of time to undo the barrier and slam the baton into Emeralds stomach, pushing her back, Neo then spun the revolver in her hand to reload it and fired three more shots which connected with Emerald knocking her back further.

They both stopped to take a breath, Emerald wiped the sweat from her brow "not bad Neo, to think you would use one of my moves to hit me" Neo gave Emerald a determined grin. Emerald cracked her neck "let's play for real" she stood still then suddenly she vanished. Anticipating an attack Neo readied herself then Emerald appeared in front of her, Neo swung first but just before she connected Emerald vanished again this time behind her, Neo tried hitting her again, but she blinked causing her to hit nothing.

Neo waited for the next appearance of Emerald but she couldn't see her, then something shifted in the lighting; Neo just happened to look up to see Emerald's foot mere inches from her face, she was too late to react and the foot planted in her face causing her to fall to the ground with Emerald standing perfectly balanced on her face as they fell.

Emerald stood over Neo, with one foot on her chest and one blade pointed at her neck she let out a sigh of relief "do you surrender Neo?" Neo's were burning with anger but surprisingly she smirked at Emerald who sighed again "have it your way" she went to stab Neo, however just before she could strike Neo's barrier expanded outwards blocking the blow, but also encasing her along with Emerald's arm.

Emerald tried to pull away from the barrier, but it was no good, she was stuck. Neo got to her feet with the same angry grin on her face, Emerald looked at Neo "so now what, we going to have a staring contest now? A vain pulsed in Neo's head in response to Emerald. Neo grabbed Emerald's arm and pulled her into the barrier, just as she entered Neo had her revolver pressed into Emerald's stomach 'bang', 'bang', 'bang'. The three shots caused Emerald to arch forward also winding her a bit. Neo was about to reload when Emerald planted her knee into Neo's stomach, the sudden shock from the attack almost made Neo drop the barrier but instead she widened the barrier about ten feet.

There was a moment of pause, the two looked at each other both looking pretty exhausted. Emerald undid the straps in her gauntlets, and both fell to the ground, it took Neo a moment to sus out what Emerald was doing, she nodded and dropped her weapons also.

The two stared each other for a moment before charging at each other. Emerald went for a straight jab to the face, but Neo knocked it out of the way and punched her in the chest. Emerald grabbed Neo's arm and flung her over her shoulder slamming her into the ground. Emerald went for a curb stomp, but Neo rolled out of the way and kicked her in the shin before rolling backwards to her feet; Emerald ran at Neo and both started punching, blocking, parrying and reposting at a frightfully fast pace.

There was a moment where they were so close to each other Neo decided to change her tactic, she headbutted Emerald in the chin, but Emerald had also decided to change things up and went for a uppercut; the two blows connected at the same time, they both staggered backwards before collapsing along with the barrier.

There was a long period of silence, even professor Goodwitch didn't believe what she just witnessed, she quickly came to her senses and proceeded to walk to the arena, where the two girls were still on the ground. As the professor made her way to the centre to check them, both started to rise at the same time then sat up in the middle "well you two", the girls looked at the professor "that was quite the match, though I must say I wouldn't go about disarming yourselves in an actual fight. In any case I'm calling this match a draw".

The two girls looked at the monitor and both were exactly on the same bit of the red, they both looked at each other and smiled. Emerald and Neo got up at the same time walked over to each other and fist bumped; they picked up their respected weapons and went to the stands to join their team.

Salem and Cinder were still stunned by the time Neo and Emerald came back to the stands Salem spoke first "geez guys what was that?" Emerald grinned "a fight that's what" Neo nodded in agreement she grabbed her scroll and typed quickly "that was the best fight we've ever had". Emerald nodded in agreement "it sure was, I had a great time, you're not the same scared child you used to be"

Neo silently chuckled and typed in response but only showed Emerald "haha well I did have an excellent big sister to help me"; Emerald went scarlet in response, but still maintained a smile "damn straight, now how about we get a drink I'm thirsty after that workout". Neo nodded and they both left, leaving Salem to ponder what just happened.

 **And that's the end of chapter 7, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and I will see you in the next chapter.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hello readers and welcome back to chapter 8 I hope you enjoy it thank you for reading. Warning this chapter will be the darkest one written yet but fear not there is light at the end of this tunnel.**

 **Chapter 8 Scars**

 _Later that evening_

Salem was in her bed sleeping, when she heard someone sneak out of the room, salem opened her eyes to have a look and noticed cinder's bed was empty, curious by this she slipped out of her bed and went to check on her. Salem exited the room and started wandering the hall eventually coming to a familiar balcony, this time however this time it was cinder who was standing by it. As salem approached she could hear the faint whimpers of a crying coming from cinder "cinder?" salem said quietly; cinder quickly spun around surprised by the sudden voice but almost instantly relaxed when she seen salem "oh hey salem" she sniffed as she spoke.

Salem had a concerned look "are you alright cin?" she reached out touched her arm, cinder tried to put on a smile "yeah I'm fine salem" salem gripped tighter "you're not fine, I heard you crying, i'll ask again, what. Is. Wrong?." Cinder could barely contain her emotions she tried once more to persuade salem "really salem I said I'm f…" cinder was interrupted by salem taking cinder's head and laying it on her chest as while stroking her hair, salem didn't say a word, she didn't have too, for that was the last barrier cinder had.

Cinder started wailing into salem's chest, salem said nothing, only continued stroking her hair letting cinder have her moment. After a solid minute of crying salem pulled her away wiping a tear from cinder's face "better now" cinder sniffed "yeah thanks" salem gave cinder a small smile "so you ready to talk now, I have a feeling it's about earlier" cinder was stunned "yeah it is".

 _Earlier that day_

"miltia malachite and cinder fall to the middle please" professor Goodwitch announced, salem tapped cinder on the shoulder "you've got this" cinder nodded with a smile and headed to the arena. Once their cinder sized up the other girl, she had her red and black dress that went to her knees with black shin high combat boots, her weapons were claws with no apparent ranged weapon.

Cinder smiled at the girl "lets have a great match" miltia scoffed "whatever" they both stood at there respective places awaiting the countdown. Once the match started miltia charged cinder first with a series of quick slashes with her claws, cinder was able to dodge enough of the attacks for an opening she jumped back trailing her whip they played this back and fourth until cinder yanked her whip, wrapping it around miltia's leg tripping her up, she hit the ground hard.

With miltia in cinder's control she started to spin dragging miltia along, cinder spun faster and faster causing miltia to lift like a centrifuge and with a twist of the wrist she let go of miltia's leg sending her careering into a wall. There was a series of 'oohs' from the crowd. Miltia picked herself up "tch, not bad girl" cinder started spinning the whip above her head making a satisfying sound.

Miltia was unimpressed by this performance suddenly she jumped up and just before she would have descended a burst of wind blew from her feet blasting her higher effectively double jumping, while in the air she tilted her body, so her head was pointing at cinder, cinder observed ready for an attack. Miltia used another burst of wind at her feet firing herself like a torpedo at cinder with her claw pointed at her, cinder saw the attack and sidestepped it but not before the claw tore the sleeve of her blazer.

Before the sleeve could fall off, she clutched her arm and fell to her knees shouting, "I surrender!".

Everyone was stunned by cinder's surrender even the professor had to take a second "why are you withdrawing miss fall, cinder stood up clutching her torn sleeve "I'm sorry" then proceeded to bolt out the door, fast as she could.

 _Present time_

Cinder pulled back her sleeve to reveal a scar that ran all around her wrist like a bracelet, salem let out a faint gasp as she looked at it, but then something unexpected happened, salem began tracing the scar with her finger, cinder went bright red "s-salem what are you doing" salem broke from her apparent trance "oh eh nothing, it's just it's a beautiful scar" cinder didn't know how to respond to that "what do you mean its beautiful, its hideous plus its…" she paused, salem looked up "its what?" cinder looked at salem nervously "can you keep a secret" salem stopped tracing and held her hand "you can tell me anything cin" cinder nodded "ok then follow me" and with that she pulled salem into the nearest bathroom.

It was a reasonably large communal bathroom with constant hot water flowing into the bath with plenty ventilation to filter out the steam, so everyone could see clearly. Salem went red when they entered, she couldn't help think dirty thoughts, but it only got worse when cinder spoke "salem would you sit on the bench" cinder pointed to a nearby bench, she only nodded, face crimson, she sat down on the bench looking at cinder.

Cinder walked towards salem but stopped about five feet away "you have to promise you won't tell anyone about this" salem started furiously nodding cinder sighed "I'm serious salem say it" salem stopped and looked into cinder's eyes "I promise" cinder smiled weakly "good". Cinder started slowly unbuttoning her blazer, first the cufflinks, then down the middle, taking it off to reveal a white long-sleeved shirt. She started unbuttoning the shirt when salem clamped her eyes shut unable to stop her mind from undressing cinder herself, in truth this helped cinder undress faster a couple of moments passed then cinder spoke "o-ok o-open your eyes salem please" salem slowly opened her eyes and her face went from red to white.

She couldn't process what she was seeing, first off cinder was in her underwear and bra, second.

Cinder was covered in scars.

They were everywhere, white lines randomly covered her body, her legs, her hips, her stomach, her arms and feet, salem imagined more hid behind her lingerie, her ankles had bad abrasions like someone had clamped her ankles with something. Salem gasped and began tearing up "what happened to you… if you don't mind me asking" cinder looked at her and gave the saddest smile salem had ever seen "I was tortured" salem's eyes went wide with anger "who would do this to someone" salem's knuckles were white, cinder kept her sad smile "I will tell you…" she paused "a monster".

 _Three years ago_

Cinder was at her home in Vacuo with her parents telling them how her studies were going, her words were filled with joy "so the professors told me if I keep going like I am I'll be accepted into beacon in no time" both parents smiled with pride, her father put one hand on her shoulder "that's great to hear, we are so proud of you cinder" he then rubbed her hair and everyone laughed.

Suddenly there was a commotion outside, followed by shouting and screaming, the father looked concerned and went to check. He opened the door just as a man ran past, he grabbed his shoulder "what's wrong" the terrified man turned to the father "its that polar demon! she's here" the father's eyes went wide with shock turned to his family "we're leaving now!".

"what's wrong dad" her dad turned to cinder "a very bad person is here and we need to get out" just then a voice came from behind him "well that's no way to talk to someone who's right here" he turned around to see a tall red headed woman with a pony tail, she wore white body armour that was now stained with blood, a black skirt that went to the top of her knees and an open black trench coat with a fur collar, she didn't seem to be carrying any weapons.

She moved into the house the father backing away as she approached suddenly cinder stood in front of her dad with her arms stretched out "leave us alone you bad lady!". The woman raised an eyebrow then laughed "hahaha to think that a child has more backbone than the you" just then cinders' mother and father rushed forward grabbed cinder and hunkered down the father snapped his eyes to the woman "please leave us alone"

The redhead started laughing hysterically "I'm not going to do anything" she paused, looked at the girl with a malicious grin "she is" cinder flinched when she spoke, the woman pointed her finger at cinder and the metal buttons on her blouse pulled her towards the redhead, the father tried to grab cinder but the polarity was too strong and she was ripped from his arms and stopped just in front of the woman.

The woman crouched down to the girl "so what's your name girl" cinder was terrified at this moment the only she could think of was replying "c-cinder" the woman let out a happy gasp "that's a really nice name, my name is Pyrrha lets be friends shall we" cinder was terrified but nodded Pyrrha smiled "great, now as my new friend I want to ask you a question" she looked at the parents "you two come here and get on your knees" the parents didn't argue but pleaded as they knelt down "please don't hurt her".

Pyrrha ignored them and turned back to cinder "so which one?" cinder looked confused at Pyrrha "I don't understand" Pyrrha grew a massive grin and whispered in cinder's ear "which of your parents should I kill" cinder's eyes went wide, she fell to her knees stuttering "I… I… c…" Pyrrha tilted her head raising her voice "hmm I can't hear you, I'll ask once more which parent should I kill I'll give you thirty seconds or I kill them both" the parents heard this and recoiled in horror, the father spoke up "pick me sweetheart, you two get to safety" Pyrrha grinned "ah a volunteer but unfortunately its not up to you, is it" she looked at cinder "well, times a wastin'" Pyrrha lifted a knife with her polarity and slowly started spinning in one second revolutions.

Each spin of the knife was driving cinder crazy, how was she supposed to choose, between the two people she loved more than anything because if she chooses one she might as well be the one who kills them, she looked at her parents were shouting and arguing about which one she should choose, Pyrrha just kept grinning as she spun the knife, cinders mind was a mess "choose mam, choose dad, choose mam, choose dad, mam, dad, mam!, dad!..." Pyrrha spoke breaking cinder from her thoughts "times up"

Cinder gasped as she looked at her parents both smiled at her and spoke in unison "we lo…" was all they could say before the knife slashed both of there throats almost at the same time and dropped to the floor. Cinder screamed at the top of her lungs, tears blinding her as she cried, Pyrrha was laughing hysterically, she loved the sound of blood gurgling in a dying persons throat. She stopped laughing and turned to leave "well this was fun kid; I'd say let's do this again buuut…" she just snickered as she walked out "wait!" cinder screamed at Pyrrha as she charged her with the same knife Pyrrha just used to slaughter her parents.

Pyrrha just laughed as the knife bounced off her body armour "wow you aren't broken yet, hmm I wonder how much it would take to break you" cinder flinched as Pyrrha turned around picked up a piece of pipe and struck cinder in the temple knocking her out, she laughed as she picked her up "this is going to be fun"

 _Sometime later_

Cinder awoke in a dark room, she couldn't see, panic immediately set in, she tried to walk but her ankles were apparently shackled as it made a 'chink' sound when she moved, she started crying the loss of her parents topped with sensory deprivation was too much for her to handle. Suddenly the sound of an iron door creaked open, followed by footsteps and a gasp "ah your awake good" the familiar woman's voice echoed around the room cinder shouted, "where am I!" this was met with laughter "why your in my home" she finished as she turned on a light, blinding cinder, she winced in pain as her retinas were assaulted by light.

After a solid minute cinder's eye began to adjust her eyes went wide when she was in a ten by ten square iron room with a single table next to the door with various objects laid out on it, knives mostly and a metal whip.

 _Several months later_

Cinder was in her room like she always was running her fingers over her newest scar, the pain was the only stimulant she had. For months now Pyrrha would come in the room for a couple of hours and whip her for fun, knives were only used when cinder did something Pyrrha didn't like, despite being a complete psychopath she was surprisingly elegant wit her cuts, always making sure she didn't cut a vain.

The first hew weeks were hell for cinder, the pain was almost unbearable, and it would get worse if she pleaded. But now she was starting to look forward to it, it was the only time of the day she could feel something, anything to relieve her maddening boredom but even the pain was starting to get old. just like clockwork the iron door would grind open with Pyrrha entering the room with her usual smile, cinder would instinctively move forward until she was at the chains length and eagerly awaited her mistress "good morning cinder, how are we today" cinder creepily smiled at Pyrrha "I'm great mistress, are you here to punish me again"

Pyrrha laughed but shook her head "no not this time" cinder let out a disappointed sigh "what why not" she tried to pull herself closer, but the chain wouldn't budge, her ankles began to bleed "please mistress! Punish me!" Pyrrha started laughing hysterically "what kind of punishment would it be if I gave you what you wanted child" cinder dropped to her knees, head down, she then spoke in a soft creepy tone "so you won't punish me?" Pyrrha nodded "that's correct" cinder snapped her head towards Pyrrha, tilted her head, eyes wide with insanity "then I shall punish you"

Without thinking cinder's feet ignited, the heat was so strong it melted the iron bracelets, Pyrrha was startled by this and took a step back but she was way too slow, cinder jumped at Pyrrha, wrapping her legs around her waist, causing them both to fall on the floor with cinder on top. Pyrrha tried to struggle but it was no good, cinder had planted her knees into her shoulders making them inoperable. Cinder let out a crazy laugh "hahahahaha! its my turn to punish" for the first time in Pyrrha's life she was scared.

Cinder took her hand and placed it on Pyrrha's face, covering her eye she tried to plead "please let me go cinder", cinder just shook her head, suddenly Pyrrha felt her face getting warmer where cinders hand was, it then dawned on her and she started screaming "no!, no!, no!, no!..." cinder paused then smirked her hand caught fire and she started burning Pyrrha's face, she let out a blood-curdling scream for a good minute before passing out from the pain.

Cinder looked at the half-charred face, the eye was completely destroyed but she was still alive. Cinder just watched her for a good minute before standing up, picking up her favourite toy (the whip) and walked to the door before she left, she turned to the unconscious pyrrha "play times' over" and walked out.

 _End of flashback_

Cinder was pacing while she was telling salem the story, once she had finished, she stopped in front of salem letting what she had just said sink in. Salem was just absorbing the information not quite sure who to react she gave cinder a look that begged more questions. Cinder sighed "after I escaped I eventually found myself back to my town, I was long presumed dead at this point though, but the academy I was studying at heard what happened and they took me in, and for the last two and a half years I've done nothing but train my body and mind though as I redeveloped my personality I started to fear my scars or rather feared what people would say if they saw them, which has now turned psychological to the point I can't even show my arms to people with the exception of you, who has now seen the whole picture"

Salem's eyes went wide with this revelation she looked up at cinder "148" cinder was confused by salem's response "148 what?" salem elaborated "148 that's how many scars you have" cinder froze she couldn't believe salem counted her scars she took a moment to compose myself "so addressing your first comment, you see my scars aren't beautiful they are hideous"

salem shook her head "you are wrong" cinder looked at salem confused "huh" salem stood up from the bench, looking straight into cinder's she eyes, she continued "you see I do find your scars beautiful, don't get me wrong I'm not saying the cause or the application of the scars are beautiful, what I find beautiful is the story your scars tell, 148 scars tell me 148 stories of how _you survived_ , through every pain, every new scar you received _you lived_ so what I find beautiful about your scars is through all the pain you suffered… _you lived to tell me_ "

before cinder could react salem leaned in and planted her lips onto cinder's embracing her in a kiss. Cinder was taken completely by surprise as salem kiss her, but she found herself reciprocating. It didn't take long before both were passionately kissing one another, salem's tongue started moving as if it had a mind of its own but paused just outside cinders mouth as if asking permission, with a soft moan from cinder it was granted. Salem's tongue danced around the inside of cinders mouth before finding cinders tongue and devouring it.

 **Insert love scene**

The two girls were both in the bath relaxing despite it being stupid o'clock at night, cinder had her head on Salem's shoulder while salem stroked her hair they both stayed like that for a little while, cinder turned her head to look up at salem "did you really mean it when you said about my scars" salem lightly chuckled "I really did, but that's not all" salem sighed "cinder I must confess that I like you a lot even the very first day I saw your beautiful amber eyes it made my heart flutter" cinder sat herself up and stroked salem's face "not as much as I fell for your pair of sapphires, the day you quite literally fell for me and our eyes first met, it was the most human I had felt since my abduction" Salem cuddled into cinder "you know me too" cinder was confused "what do you mean?" Salem's tone dropped then sighed "it's only fair I told you, since you told me your story".

Salem began telling cinder about the night salem's parents were abducted and she went into great detail, a solid thirty minutes later salem finished by telling cinder what happened in the forest two days ago. Cinder was shocked to hear this and surprisingly was crying for salem "oh my Oum that's awful, so what will you do now" Salem sighed "get stronger I guess until the day I confront silver eyes" she then let out a happy sigh though "in a strange way I'm glad how this turned out" cinder let out a sigh of confusion "huh" salem chuckled "what I mean is if nothing had happened I would never of met you and in turn never had the best experience of my life, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you for existing"

Cinder's eyes welled up in happiness as she pulled salem in for a tight hug "thank you for making me feel human".

The two embraced in another kiss before leaving the bath, they got their clothes and headed for bed hand in hand.

 **That's the end of chapter 8 I hope you liked it.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello readers and welcome back to chapter 9 I hope you will enjoy it, thank you for reading.**

 **Chapter 9 Black dust**

Then next morning arrived at beacon, the girls were all waking up doing their various stretches, when emerald began to sniff, "what's this is I feeling" neo turned to emerald with a confused face "don't you sense it neo" emerald grinned then turns to cinder and salem "all the sexual tension is gone", both the girls went scarlet, in there minds they were going "there is no way emerald could of known". They both looked opposite ways avoiding each-others eye contact, emerald grinned "all I needed to see".

Neo's eyes sparkled with the realisation then turned to kiss emerald, but was stopped by emeralds finger on her lips "wo, wo settle petal we ain't there yet", neo pulled away and pouted, emerald's heart skipped a beat looking at neo's pout, she coughed to cover it up "anyway in all honesty are you two a thing, I'm not saying it as a joke", salem and cinder took each other's hand, they both nodded in unions "yes" they both replied, emeralds grin shifted to a smile "that's good" then the grin returned "just remember to put a sock on the door if your planning on storming each other's castle" emerald winked, both girls went crimson.

 _An hour later_

The girls were enjoying their breakfasts when all four got a notification on their scrolls, it read "students your regularly scheduled classes are suspended today, professor Wiess will be taking you on a field trip, bring your combat gear, signed Professor Ozpin" the four girls were surprised by this. "I wonder where we're going" salem spoke first. "I don't know, but it must be related to semblance training" cinder replied "I wonder if I can get another shot at professor B…" emerald grinned Neo raised her scroll "whatever it is let's do our best" the girls nodded in response "well then" salem stood up "let's go get our gear team" the girls agreed and headed for their lockers.

They arrived at the semblance training room with rest of the class, once again Weiss wasn't there, in the few moments the students had before the professor would arrive, miltia walked over to cinder "hey you, what was the deal with you yesterday, conceding like that, cinder looked at her feet "I'm sorry about that" miltia shook her head "I don't want an apology, I want a rematch" cinder looked confused "why" miltia scoffed "because things were just getting good" she let out a small smile "besides I could feel you were better than that" she then moved up to cinder and whispered in her ear "I liked it" cinder blushed, miltia returned to her twin giving cinder a wink.

Not long after Weiss arrived, she gave the class a look over before giving them a smile "hello class as most of you are aware, we are going on a field trip today any obvious questions" cinder raised her had "where are we going professor?" Weiss kept her small smile "to answer that, first answer me this what was humanities first real weapon against the grim", "dust" salem interrupted Weiss nodded "correct, so to answer your question miss fall, we are going to the dust forest to collect dust samples" cinder looked confused "what does that have to do with semblance training miss", "the reason is that some kinds of dust can be used to modify, manipulate or change the very nature of your semblance, for instance say you used water dust with your fire what would happen?" cinder puzzled "I'm not sure" Weiss chuckled "you get steam and with the water dust as an amplifier you could manipulate the steam just like your fire and change its very essence". The whole class was stunned with this knew found knowledge.

Wiess turned around and started walking to the door "come on class the shuttle will be here in an hour" everyone nodded and followed Wiess.

The shuttle ride only took half an hour to arrive at the destination. When the class left the aircraft, they were met with very large forest but within there was several spots of different colours randomly dotted everywhere. Wiess turned to the class "right everyone, welcome to the dust forest, most of the dust we use today comes from here, you'll be split into your teams and given a specific coordinate to look for dust, once you acquire several samples return here, any questions" one student raised their hand "so does that mean you wont be coming with us?" Weiss nodded "correct, I want to observe how you students handle yourselves in a situation where you have to rely solely on yourself and your teammates it'll help me greatly in learning how you use your semblances in real situations".

Another student raised their hand "what do you mean by 'real situations'" a small grin grew on Wiess's face "isn't it obvious, the grim reside in this forest" there was a couple of small gasps from the class "you will be fine, in the worst case scenario I will protect you, I cant have my students dying on me" that reassured the class a little, Weiss made a quick glance at salem before walking over to her "you four will be searching the cave at these coordinates there is said to be black dust in there".

Salem gave the professor a confused look "what is black dust professor" Weiss replied "black dust is a newly discovered type of dust, we are not entirely sure what it does, but we want to study it" salem nodded in acknowledgement "why are you sending us" Weiss chuckled "professor Ozpin thinks highly of you four and this would be a good test for you four"

Wiess held her scroll up to Salem's and transferred the coordinates" salem nodded "alright professor" and with that salem turned to her team "lets get going shall we" they all nodded, then the four bolted into the forest, as they turned there backs to leave the grin on Wiess's face widened.

The girls were running through the forest not so fast that it would tire they ran in a four-point diamond position with salem in the front, emerald and cinder on the sides and neo at the back. "the professor seemes rather whimsical today" emerald broke the silence "maybe she's just enthusiastic about our training" cinder responded "perhaps, so salem how much further" emerald directed, salem didn't turn her head "I think we're pretty close" just as salem finished they broke through into a clearing with the cave on the other side.

They approached the cave all four had their weapons out all on high alert. Once they entered the mouth of the cave, they could see that it was a fairly large cave with stalagmites on the roof, the cave itself had two openings to the left and right. Th four girls looked into the cave "well we're here, which way should we go" cinder inquired, salem moved closer to the left hand tunnel "hey cin, could you set me on fire" cinder blinked twice "excuse me, could you repeat that" salem looked back at her "what I meant was could you throw a ball of fire at me" cinder blinked again "why?" salem smiled "so I can catch it with my TK (telekinesis) that way we have a source of light and you don't use up aura" cinder tilted her head with an eyebrow raised "are you sure about this, what about your aura", "yes I'm sure, your fireball wont be heavy enough to drain me at all" cinder nodded wearily "ok if you insist, guys move away from salem and get behind me" emerald and neo nodded "your one crazy girl salem" emerald remarked as she walked behind cinder. Salem backed up about thirty feet then took a stance while cinder pointed her palm at her with a concerned look "you ready" salem nodded, cinder's hand suddenly caught fire, she cupped the fire in her other hand, moulding it into a small ball before launching it at salem.

Salem watched this ball come at her with her hands extended she just managed to catch it before it collided with her head, it had stopped mere inches from her face, the heat made salem sweat, she then relaxed moving the ball away from her face. There was a moment of silence in the cave as everyone just watched the suspended orb of fire, salem grinned "see, what did I tell you" cinder gave her a smile "show off" they both laughed.

Just then the cave began to rumble furiously making all the girls lose their balance, it got so bad the cave started to collapse, large stalagmites started falling from the roof "salem!" cinder shouted salem was just about to respond when the left side cave where she was collapsed entirely, trapping salem on the other side. Luckily salem managed to maintain her semblance so the ball of fire was fine, but she was now trapped.

Cinder rushed over to the collapsed side "salem! Are you alright!?", salem coughed "yeah I'm fine but it looks like I'm stuck here, you guys take the other path, I'll continue down this one, hopefully they connect somewhere" there was tears in cinder's eyes "I understand, just be careful" salem let out a small chuckle "aint I always" and with that she started walking down the tunnel.

 **Salem's pov**

The tunnel was about ten feet wide thankfully the light from the orb made it easy to navigate, she continued until she came to an open cavern and in the middle salem saw see something odd, it was a pool of black liquid. Salem approached it cautiously, she stared into it, it was like black oil but it didn't have the rainbow like colour when the light of the orb hit it, while she was fixating on the black substance the cave shook violently knocking salem off balance, she hit the ground with a thud but also a splash "oh shit".

Her eyes widened when she seen her forearm in the pool, she pulled it out it was caked in this black essence, she tried to rub it off but when she touched it, it had already dried like a cast, she could still move her fingers.

"This must be the black dust that the professor wanted" she thought to herself, a roar boomed from the other side of the cavern, salem snapped her head to see a beowolf but this one was different for starters it was larger than normal but what was especially different its usual red armour plates were a muddy brown. It pointed its claw at salem and a rock suddenly shot towards salem, she dodged it "what th-" before she could finish it threw another one, she dodged that one as well "oh right that's it" she grabbed her weapon and ran up to the beowolf at a blinding at speed then slashed down the middle, even though the hit was true there was no damage, the beowolf swung with its arm, knocking salem back "that's not possible this bastards got an aura"

the beowolf roared at her in response, they both ran at each other in the middle, salem went for a horizontal slash but the grim blocked it then went to slash her, she bent her back to avoid it and used the momentum to do a backflip kick to the grims jaw stunning it, she came out of the flip she delivered an aura punch to its chest, not realising she hit it with her black dusted arm, the force threw the beowolf soaring crashing into the back wall. Salem raised her coated arm "well that was something". The grim pulled itself off the wall, shaking its head before staring daggers at salem, salem readied herself as the beowolf went to charge again it suddenly stopped before dropping dead, standing behind it was emerald who turned to salem "sup".

 **The others (after the collapse)**

"aint I always" Salem's voice travelled through the rocks, cinder nodded then turned to the other two "alright let's get going" emerald looked concerned "you sure we wouldn't be getting the professor" cinder's expression changed to serious "no we're going to rescue salem ourselves, I will burn down everything down to the ground if we don't find her" emerald felt a chill run down her spin "whatever you say cinder, you in neo" neo nodded furiously cinder's face went back to normal "good lets go" and with they headed down the right tunnel.

After a short walk they reached a cavern and inside was a large black ball with red spikes on it "what do you think that is" emerald noted, cinder shook her head "irrelevant" she took one step in and the large mound shifted before four large limbs emerged from it, it turned to face the group, it was a huge ursa, it had black fur with red armour plates running up its front arms, across the front of its body and red spikey spins running down its back. It roared with so much force it rocked the cave violently, causing the girls to stumble nearly causing the girls to fall over, they collected themselves emerald turned to cinder "that's is not irrelevant!" cinder's expression changed to annoyed "tch fine, neo stay back provide fire support, emerald find a weak spot I'll take it head on" neo took a step back and lined her rifle with the grims head, emerald grinned "whatever lets go save a princess" she locked in her blades, cinder smiled "thank you" she then turned to the grim and approached it.

Cinder unhooked her whip, letting it trail as she walks forward. The grim started running at cinder and swung with its right fist, she dodged to the right also just missing the attack but whip her wrapped around its arm, she pressed the button on the whip and the blades extended out gripping it to the arm with a pull it ripped through the arm severing it entirely . The roared in pain, neo shot three shots at its head while emerald was blinking all over its back, stabbing it repeatedly as she moved while she was doing this, she noticed an entrance behind the grim, she blinked behind cinder "there is an opening past the grim" cinder nodded "you go me and neo will finish it off" emerald nodded, she turned to neo who just had her thumbs up. Emerald blinked up to the grims head gave it wink then vanished past it. Emerald turned to see cinders arms on fire she took it as a sign to run and she did.

While emerald was running, she could hear fighting through a wall then suddenly a oddly coloured beowolf came slamming through the wall, emerald was slightly shaken by this but noticed it getting back up heading back to where it was, emerald smirked, she blinked behind it and stabbed it through the back, it collapsed to the ground to reveal salem on the other side "sup"

Salem just watched emerald stepping over the now disintegrating beowolf she subconsciously waved with her black arm, emerald was confused "hey salem what's up with your arm" salem looked at her arm before rubbing the back of her head with it "I found the black dust" her face turned serious "though I found something much worse" emerald was puzzled "what do you mean" salem looked into emeralds eyes "I'm convinced that beowolf had an aura" emeralds eyes went wide with shock "you're kidding right, I mean that's not possible grim don't have souls for an aura", "I know emerald, but I swear that grim had a semblance, it threw rocks at me without touching it, it was also a different colour I don't know for sure but we should get out of her-" she paused when she saw cinder emerge from the hole with a teary smile. They both exchanged a warm hug.

After a minute the girls were all together, salem told the cinder and neo what happened, neither could believe it "so that's how your arm is like that" salem nodded "yeah, lets get the sample and get out of here" the girls nodded salem moved to the pool of black dust she plunged her already coated arm in and scooped it in a jar "you sure its safe" salem smiled "I have no idea but its already on me so what's the harm" cinder didn't share salem's thought but as long as she appeared fine she let it go.

After they left the cave and made their way to the landing area, where Weiss was standing with the students, they emerged from the trees, Weiss immediately turned around and approached the girls "ah girls you've returned, were you successful?" salem held up the jar with her black arm "yes professor" Wiess's eyes widened when she saw the arm "oh my salem are you alright" salem nodded "yes professor, I got it on me but I feel fine, in fact…" she paused and punched a tree causing it to shatter and collapse "I feel great", Weiss couldn't hide her smile "I see that's impressive, well done salem and the rest of you, you did not disappoint" she took the black dust sample, then turned to the rest of the students "all right students back on the shuttle, we're heading back now".

 _Back in beacon_

The girls just arrived in beacon when salem felt a twinge in her coated arm, she turned to the girls "I'm going to head to professor Ozpin's office and let him know what happened" emerald and neo nodded, cinder ask to come with her but salem declined then headed to the office.

Salem knocked on Ozpin's door which was met with "come in", salem opened the door and walked in with her arms behind her back. Ozpin was sitting at his desk typing away, he looked up and closed his computer "ah miss Velaros I see you've returned from your trip, how was it?" salem walked over "yes professor there is something i need to show you" ozpin raised an eyebrow "oh and what might that be?" salem then showed him her arm, there was a immediate look of concern, he got up from his chair and moved up to salem staring at her arm "may I?" he held out his hand near salem's arm, salem nodded, he gently grabbed her arm also running his finger along the length with his other hand, he looked up at salem "does it hurt" salem shook her arm "no sir, am I ok" Ozpin let go "honestly I'm not sure this is the first time I've seen black dust in contact with an individual".

There was a look of concern on salem now "also that's not the only bad news I've got" ozpin adjusted his glasses "go on" salem looked straight at ozpin "I fought a grim with an aura" ozpin dropped his coffee mug, "what do mean it had an aura?" salem was surprised by ozpin's reaction "well after I got coated a brown armoured beowolf attacked me, at first it somehow manged to lift rocks without touching it and throw them at me, also when I hit it there was no damage, it felt like sparring practice" ozpin took a moment to process "so let me get this straight not only are you telling me that you fought a grim with an aura but it had a semblance too" salem nodded "yes" ozpin's face returned to normal "well that is troubling, thank you for telling me salem, also please return to me if your arm gets worse" sure thing professor, with that she left his office and returned to her team.

Ozpin looked out his window "it looks like the world is changing again".

 **That's the end of chapter 9 I hope liked it, this one I found harder to write, so I apologise if it isn't great. Thank you for reading and I will see you in the next chapter**


	10. Chapter 10

**Hello everyone, welcome back to chapter 10 I hope you will enjoy it, thank you for reading**

 **Chapter 10 Mutation**

Salem was in her bed just staring at her black forearm the twinges were coming more frequently but she elected to ignore it. She tried rubbing it with her other hand, but she couldn't feel her own touch against it "I wonder what's going on" she thought to herself, eventually sleep came to salem.

The morning came, Salem opened her eyes and noticed dried black dust all over her pillow, she immediately shot up from her bed, then looked at her arm, Salem's eyes went wide her, the dust cast had shattered, her hand was still black but her fingers were like claws, as she looked up her arm there was black lines running up her veins up to her elbow. Salem wiggled her new appendage, moving it around it felt just like normal fingers, she took one finger and ran it down her bed gently, it tore the sheet instantly "oh shit".

Cinder woke up hearing a tearing sound, she sat up and look at Salem who was fixated on her hand "good morning salem-" she stopped speaking when she noticed the claw, Salem broke from her thoughts "oh, morning Cinder" she looked at her hand "yeah I know" Cinder looked increasingly concerned she got up from her bed and walked over to Salem "can I touch it" Salem nodded "sure go for it" Cinder hesitated then touched her hand Salem jolted slightly, Cinder looked up at Salem "are you ok" Salem smiled "yeah Its just I can feel your touch" Cinder blushed Salem curled her fingers around Cinder's hand, .

Suddenly an impulse ran through Salem's head, she dropped from her bed, then locked lips with Cinder. Cinder was taken completely by surprise but surrendered to the kiss, the two spent a good ten seconds kissing before hearing a cough from behind them, they broke off, turning to see a grinning Emerald "well thanks for the show but your going to fry poor Neo's head" they both turned to look at Neo who had her covers up to her face, but it was clear she was scarlet, suddenly both girls realised what just happened they moved away from each other, Salem rubbed her head "I'm sorry about that cin, I don't know why I did that" Cinder shook her head "no its fine I enjoyed it, you just caught me off guard" Cinder traced her finger over her lips.

…..

Ozpin was standing looking out his window sipping his morning coffee when he heard a knock on his door "come in" he says while continuing to look outside. In stepped a man with black hair that was braided hair like a scorpion tail "what's this about Oz you seemed off on the phone" Ozpin turned around "indeed Tyrian I need to you investigate something" Tyrian raised an eyebrow as he approached "something definitely up if your giving me orders" Ozpin put his cup on the desk then looked at Tyrian with determined eyes but what was most notable was the fire behind them.

Tyrian in all his years had only seen those eyes a handful of times none of them good. Ozpin sighed "recently one of my students have been in several unique circumstances one such very recently" Ozpin paused "the student claimed that she fought a grimm that both an aura and a semblance" Tyrian burst out laughing "hahaha oh Ozpin if you just wanted me over for a good chuckle you should of said" Tyrian stopped laughing then the room went silent Ozpin didn't respond he just continued to look at Tyrian, then it clicked in the faunis's head Ozpin wasn't joking.

Tyrian looked back at Ozpin "that's impossible the student must be lying, no grimm has ever produced an aura let alone a semblance, hell our entire knowledge of the grimm is that they cant." Ozpin sighed again "I wish it were a lie, but I have absolutely no reason to doubt her, the look in her eyes, the fear, that was real. So, that's the mission head to the dust forest and the surrounding area and investigate".

Tyrian could hardly believe his ears but even if there was a 1% chance that what Ozpin says is true there was no way he could ignore such an obvious danger. He gave Ozpin a nod "I'll leave immediately" he turned and walked to the door before pausing "by the way what's this students name?" Ozpin adjusted his glasses "Salem Velaros" Tyrian's eyes went wide.

…..

Salem received a message from Ozpin telling her to report to the infirmary immediately, she turned to her squad "you guys get to class I'll join you later" Cinder held Salem's hand "you sure you don't want us to come" Salem shook her head "I'll be fine" Salem gave Cinder one last smile before heading to the infirmary.

Salem arrived at the infirmary but surprisingly no one was there she just assumed the nurse was out so she sat on a bed while examining her new claw she couldn't stop staring at it, despite the potential harmful effects of whatever the black dust has, it looked surprisingly elegant in its design. A moment passed before the infirmary doors opened, Salem looked up to see professor Schnee stepping in, confused Salem raised an eyebrow.

Wiess offered a smile as she walked in "hello salem, how are you doing" Salem nodded "morning professor, where is the nurse, I was told to come here by professor Ozpin" Wiess let out a small amused chuckle "I know, I am the nurse, well" Wiess paused "you see beacon has two medical practices, the first is conventual illness and injuries that is treated by the actual nurse the other is huntsmen based issues such as your hand those cases fall to me."

Salem nodded "what about your other classes" Wiess just smiled "well you are a special case salem, no one has been exposed to black dust before, at least not to this degree" she points to the claw "first of all how do you feel, does it hurt?" Salem shook her head "no, in fact my hand has never felt better". Wiess held her chin as she thought "hmm I'm going to take some blood samples if that is alright?" Salem nodded. As soon as Wiess tried to get blood from the hand the needle snapped, both just watched the small needle bounce off, landing on the floor Wiess just smiled "at least its durable, lets try again" this time she aimed for the wrist where the black veins were, she got though, pulling the needle back Salem's blood was black.

Salem seeing this immediately began to panic "oh shit! Why is my blood black!" Wiess put a hand on Salem's shoulder in an attempt to calm her "don't worry Salem we are going to figure this out I promise I'll make sure nothing happens to you" Salem managed a small smile "really", Wiess nodded. After a minute Salem regained her composure as Wiess put a drop of blood under a microscope, as she looked her eyes went wide "the black dust is eating her red blood cells and producing what looks like black blood cells at this rate…" Wiess's smile formed into a grin as she thought to herself.

Salem watched Wiess on the microscope "is everything aright professor?" Wiess snapped out of it and turned to Salem "yes, it turns out you can put your worries away, it seems your fine the black dust is actually strengthening you." Salem was visibly happy to hear this but something about the professor's words didn't feel right "alright lets do one last test for today" Salem was dragged out of her thoughts by Wiess "come with me salem" Salem nodded and followed the professor out.

After a short walk they arrived at the semblance training area, Salem looked puzzled "what are we doing here professor?" Wiess turned around and smiled "I want to perform a physical test, I mean aren't you curious as to what your hand is capable of" Salem couldn't deny that from the brief time she fought the brown beowolf she was surprised her how powerful it was despite only being a cast but now that it was like this, she wiggled her claw, she was curious.

Looking back at the professor and nodded "sure let's do this" Wiess almost broke into a squeal from Salem's response but she composed herself "very good now hit this training dummy, don't worry about breaking it" Salem nodded, walking up to it she clenched her fist and struck the dummy causing it to explode in a hail of woodchips, Salem stared at her hand the impact from hitting the dummy made Salem feel… _good_.

Wiess clapped "nicely done Salem though I'm not surprised since I saw you punch that tree yesterday, lets try a tougher target" Salem agreed, Wiess held out her hand as several glyphs appeared on the floor, a second later a verity of ice based objects ranging from a sold block of ice to ice-based dummies.

See all this ice brought back the night she stopped the store getting robbed, curiosity bested her "sorry for asking professor but what is your semblance" Wiess paused immediately she turned to Salem with her normal face "that's a bit personal salem, why do you ask?" Salem felt bad asking but she inquired further "it's just I briefly fought someone a while back who used ice and I was curious to know if its possible for several people to possess the same semblance".

Wiess's turned her hand away from Salem as an ice shard grew out of it slowly, she opted for a smile "and this person could you identify them" readying herself for Salem's response the ice shard now fully out. Salem shook her head in disappointment "no I couldn't Identify them; it was dark, and they had just launched an attack before I could get a good look and escaped". Wiess retracted the ice shard immediately she internalized a sigh of relief "that's a pity however to answer your question my semblance is conjuration, I can make any object in my mind and give it a property such as ice, I used ice because its durable and easy to clean up".

Salem accepted her answer and went back to training. After an hour or so Salem found out that her claw was many times stronger than yesterday, her actual claw was sharp enough to cut any object Wiess made to pieces and every time Salem hit something it filled her with a certain joy that came from the destruction by the time Salem had finished destroying the last object she was grinning from ear to ear whilst almost panting like a dog that was in play mode.

Wiess put a hand on Salem's shoulder to calm her down "I think that is enough for today". Salem regained her composure "yeah ok" Salem looked around the room and the floor was covered in shattered ice she rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment "sorry for the mess, I got a bit carried away" Wiess shook her head and smiled "nothing a mop and a bucket cant fix, in any case I have concluded that you seem to be fit for classes I will let professor Ozpin know, in the mean time I I'm going to bandage your whole arm so as to not startle the other students after which you may go to lunch and if your arm gets bad I want you to immediately contact me and I will come ok".

I took a moment to wrap up everything was had said "ok great, I understand professor" Wiess smiled back "good, now come here while I bandage you" Salem nodded and let Wiess thoroughly wrap a bandage around her arm, once it was done the bandage started to glow slightly then she noticed her claw, it shrunk back to its size normal size and shape Salem was stunned by this "what is this professor" Wiess chuckled slightly from Salem's expression "this is a special aura infused bandage typically used for hunters who sustain severe breaks, what it does is reverts the shape of what ever needs fixed back to a point where it wasn't broken, it doesn't fix it, it just holds it in a natural state so it can heal naturally without the need for a cast , so now you can go about your day and no one will be the wiser" Weiss's face went serious "but remember it hasn't been fixed, if you were to hit someone with your hand as it is, you could seriously hurt or even kill someone and no one wants that".

Salem looked at her bandaged hand and the severity of what the professor said sunk in, she looked up at Wiess "I understand professor" Wiess returned to a smile "good, now off you go I've got work to do" Salem nodded and headed out the room and headed towards the cafeteria.

…..

After Salem left Wiess let out a sigh, a moment of silence passed before Wiess began to giggle, her face twisting into a sinister grin "hahaha what a specimen!, I must let the mistress know of this at once, wants I tell her she is going to praise me for my diligence I just know it". Wiess practically skipped to her office, once inside she froze the door shut with a four-inch ice wall. It was a fairly normal looking office but under her desk Wiess pulled out a glass ball that had black tendrils attached to the bottom.

Wiess sat down straightened her hair, unbuttoned the top button of her blouse, and concentrated her aura into the glass ball. A moment passed then the black tendrils rapidly wrapped around her arm like an octopus Wiess never like that part. The glass ball went a milky colour before clearing until it showed a large black and red throne with someone sitting on it, they had a red cloak the concealed the top half of their face while a red and black plated half-mask covering the bottom half. They wore a black corset with red string to tie it together.

Wiess coughed… a moment passed nothing, Wiess coughed again… once again nothing Wiess held the glass ball to her ear only to hear a gentle snore coming from the hooded figure. Wiess sighed before saying "mistress" every time there was no response Wiess went louder before she shouted "mistress!" the hooded figure jumped out of their throne, startled by the loud noise which was met with a "wah!".

The figure rubbed their eyes before looking at the glass ball with a livid expression, they pounced for the glass orb before shouting into the ball "who ever this is better have damn good reason for waking me, tell me your name before I cut off your leg and watch you play hopscotch". Wiess calmly responded "its Wiess mistress ruby, I have a urgent update" ruby's expression changed to happy "oh Wiess it's you, I thought it was an overzealous grunt again, what's the word, how is my favourite beacon student doing?"

Wiess practically squealed in excitement "well mistress, as you know Salem has been in contact with the black dust but what's most interesting is that it appears to be infecting her".

ruby began to grin "I see, what the progress on the infection".

"just her hand which had grew into a claw in just a day , but what's more fascinating is that the black dust is eating her red blood cells and replacing them with black dust blood cells, which is spreading the infection, if this continues she may become a 'true convert'" Wiess responded.

Ruby practically jumped with joy "I see that is fantastic news, in fact I too have news my first batch of new pets are ready, go tell your contact… jaune was it? That he is to pick them up and deliver them to the pier in vale where the white fang will be waiting to enact phase 2".

Wiess visibly sighed thinking about working with that moron "yes mistress it shall be done".

Ruby giggled "good, one last thing…" ruby grinned.

…..

 **That is the end of chapter 10 I apologise for the extremely long delay; I have had chronic writers block as well as real life stuff. But I'm back and hopefully I can update more regularly but I can't promise anything, but in the meantime thank you for reading and I will see you in the next chapter. I tried leaving it on a cliff hanger but I'm not sure if I pulled it off, but I tried anyway :)**


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